Railway staff unions industrial and strike action - 2023

[whole diary]

[IndustryInsider]

If you haven’t already, it might be worth producing a detailed set of proposals and sending that to all the relevant policy makers?

The franchise system collapse means there has never been a better time since privatisation for a wholesale reform.

If it comes to nothing, then at least you’ve tried - after all, there’s very little chance of it being picked up on here.

[grahame]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) - ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) Strike days

Train drivers are set to stage a fresh round of strikes in their long-running dispute over pay.
The Aslef union has announced a "rolling programme" of walkouts between 2 and 8 December, with different train companies affected on each day.
Drivers will also refuse to work any overtime from 1 to 9 December as part of the industrial action.

[snip]

Saturday 2 December at East Midlands Railway and LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about)
Sunday 3 December at Avanti West Coast, Chiltern, Great Northern Thameslink, and West Midlands Trains
Tuesday 5 December at C2C and Greater Anglia
Wednesday 6 December at Southeastern, Southern/Gatwick Express, SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) main line, SWR depot drivers, and Island Line
Thursday 7 December at CrossCountry and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)
Friday 8 December at Northern and TPT

Services are expected to be cancelled on strike days, causing disruption for passengers.

[Phantom]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) - ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) Strike days

Train drivers are set to stage a fresh round of strikes in their long-running dispute over pay.
The Aslef union has announced a "rolling programme" of walkouts between 2 and 8 December, with different train companies affected on each day.
Drivers will also refuse to work any overtime from 1 to 9 December as part of the industrial action.

[snip]

Saturday 2 December at East Midlands Railway and LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about)
Sunday 3 December at Avanti West Coast, Chiltern, Great Northern Thameslink, and West Midlands Trains
Tuesday 5 December at C2C and Greater Anglia
Wednesday 6 December at Southeastern, Southern/Gatwick Express, SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) main line, SWR depot drivers, and Island Line
Thursday 7 December at CrossCountry and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)
Friday 8 December at Northern and TPT

Services are expected to be cancelled on strike days, causing disruption for passengers.

Oh dear, the day I am supposed to be doing a presentation in London

[grahame]

Oh dear, the day I am supposed to be doing a presentation in London

On past form there will be limited daytime services ...  and historically there would have been "the Waterloos"

[Clan Line]

I don't suppose that we can expect them to go and spend their £59,189 (BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) fig) salaries on Christmas prezzies in their own time - can we ? 

[IndustryInsider]

I’m expecting widespread disruption on Sunday 3rd December with the non-contractual overtime ban.  Many HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) grade drivers are likely to make themselves unavailable as per their T&C’s and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) grade drivers won’t be volunteering for additional shifts.

[Bob_Blakey]

My original 7th December booking DIG > EXD^» (Exeter St Davids - next trains) >PAD^» (Paddington (London) - next trains) has had to be binned - RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) has been updated to indicate no Exmouth branch services, only two trains to PAD and no HEx service either.

I will (hopefully) now take a bus, using a crinklies pass, from home to Exeter city centre - the Stagecoach H will drop me off at EXC - and then 1L56 from EXC (1430) to CLJ (1809), this being diverted via WSB^» (Westbury - next trains) to avoid the engineering closure, followed by 1N95 CLJ (1822) > FEL (1842), and then the 490 TfL^» (Transport for London - about) bus to Heathrow T4 (overnight hotel prior to early Friday flight to Nice + train to Toulon for the European Champions Cup game on Saturday).

Fingers firmly crossed!

[Timmer]

I’m expecting widespread disruption on Sunday 3rd December with the non-contractual overtime ban.  Many HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) grade drivers are likely to make themselves unavailable as per their T&C’s and GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) grade drivers won’t be volunteering for additional shifts.

GWR backing up what you posted yesterday II:

Sunday 3 December – Action short of a strike

There will be significant disruption to services and customers are recommended to travel the day before or the following day. Where trains can run, they will be extremely busy.

Source: www.gwr.com/strike

[Timmer]

Looking at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) for this coming Sunday 3rd of December, from what I can see, the only HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) services that will be operating to/from London is an hourly service Swindon to Paddington and an hourly service North Cotswolds line to Paddington.

There will also be an hourly HSS service between Bath and Bristol along with the usual local and inter regional services. These appear to be running as normal across the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network. However, what’s shown today on RTT and what actually runs on the 3rd may be two completely different things.

[Timmer]

Looking at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) for this coming Sunday 3rd of December, from what I can see, the only HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) services that will be operating to/from London is an hourly service Swindon to Paddington and an hourly service North Cotswolds line to Paddington.

There will also be an hourly HSS service between Bath and Bristol along with the usual local and inter regional services. These appear to be running as normal across the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network. However, what’s shown today on RTT and what actually runs on the 3rd may be two completely different things.

GWR have confirmed this on X (Twitter) this morning:
https://twitter.com/GWRHelp/status/1730121328034738543

[grahame]

Looking at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) for this coming Sunday 3rd of December, from what I can see, the only HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) services that will be operating to/from London is an hourly service Swindon to Paddington and an hourly service North Cotswolds line to Paddington.

There will also be an hourly HSS service between Bath and Bristol along with the usual local and inter regional services. These appear to be running as normal across the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network. However, what’s shown today on RTT and what actually runs on the 3rd may be two completely different things.

GWR have confirmed this on X (Twitter) this morning:
https://twitter.com/GWRHelp/status/1730121328034738543

From London to Bath and Bristol, take the hourly train to Swindon (timed for a 387, I notice) and change onto the Westbury train - the only service via Chippenham, changing again at Trowbridge.

[IndustryInsider]

RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) members have voted to accept the deal:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67577683

[IndustryInsider]

RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) members have voted to accept the deal:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67577683

Interesting that nobody thought this breakthrough worthy of comment.

Anyway, ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) members have (unsurprisingly) voted heavily in favour of renewing their action with 88% GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) members voting for strike action and 96% voting for action short of a strike.

[grahame]

RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) members have voted to accept the deal:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67577683

Interesting that nobody thought this breakthrough worthy of comment.

Anyway, ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) members have (unsurprisingly) voted heavily in favour of renewing their action with 88% GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) members voting for strike action and 96% voting for action short of a strike.

Ah ... now I did think of it as being worthy of comment, but refrained.  It "feels" delicate to make too much comment on industrial relations at times.   Realistically, one or two comments here are hardly likely to cause wide-spread upset.

It is good news that the RMT have voted to accept the deal that was on offer, though it's my understanding that it doesn't last very long and more negotiations will be needed next year.  But it really feels like one hurdle has been cleared only to leave another firmly - perhaps more firmly - in place with ASLEF.

[Timmer]

Looking at RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) for this coming Sunday 3rd of December, from what I can see, the only HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) services that will be operating to/from London is an hourly service Swindon to Paddington and an hourly service North Cotswolds line to Paddington.

There will also be an hourly HSS service between Bath and Bristol along with the usual local and inter regional services. These appear to be running as normal across the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network. However, what’s shown today on RTT and what actually runs on the 3rd may be two completely different things.

Which has turned about to be the case. No Swindon to Paddington services and many North Cotswold line services either canned or running short on top of many local and inter regional cancellations/short running.

ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) have ended up with two strike days for the price of one. What a state our railways are in if they are able to bring the GWR network down without actually going on strike such is the reliance on overtime and the requirement not to work on a Sunday.