Tuesday 7 July 2015


LU’s management team still don’t seem to understand exactly what is wrong with their proposals on Night Tube, they don’t seem able to negotiate nor do they seem to understand quite how unions work.  Because of their failure to grasp what are pretty simple concepts we are going to have a strike on Thursday although they don’t seem too bothered about it.  Yesterday at ACAS they put a new offer on the table but told unions they had until 6:30pm to accept, approve the new timetables and call off the strike.  Our reps had to reject the ultimatum as they have to consult with the members, our local reps and the Executive Council before agreeing to any deal so instead they offered to come back to ACAS for further talks today but LU refused.

The deal on the table – well, on the table until 6:30pm yesterday - was 2% this year (good), RPI or 1% whichever is greater for the next two years (not so good) and a £500 “launch bonus” for all staff affected by Night Tube with an additional £2000 for TOps (giraffe’s testicles).  It wouldn’t matter how big the one off bonus was, it won’t make working the night shifts on Fridays and Saturdays any more attractive and we’d be working far more weekends that we currently do.

If LU really want Night Tube to happen they are going to have to start talking to our reps, stop thinking in terms of one-off bonuses and start thinking about incentivising those night shifts.  That is going to mean working them at a higher rate of pay and/or extra rest days in the week after although for myself there is nothing they could offer that would ever make me want to work them.  Night Tube was announced on 24 September last year, for over nine months LU has stuck with Plan A but if they want progress they need a Plan B and they will need the unions’ help to sell it to their employees.

I’ve been doing a little Googling on Steve Griffiths who became our new Chief Operating Officer in May, his first job was as an a Senior Service Engineer at Rolls Royce in 1986 and after nine years there he moved to a similar job at Virgin Atlantic.  He worked his way steadily up the ladder becoming Chief Operating Officer in 2009 but after four years his job was “restructured” out of existence.  After six months “resting” he found himself a job as a director at Bond Aviation, a company that specialises in helicopter transport and then he came to us.  With all that aviation experience he might still have his head in the clouds but if so then the next few weeks are sure to bring him back down to earth with a bump.

Good luck for Thursday everybody, this is not going to be easy.

50 comments:

  1. I think you guys have got it right on this one, and this is coming from a Conservative voter who does the Northern line commute every day.

    It should be self-evident that the Night Tube shifts are less attractive and need to be incentivised for TOps to want to work them. LU's attempt to railroad it through is unimpressive to say the least.

    Let's be honest - Tube drivers have a PR problem. You're in the right here, but most Tube passengers are assuming it's just another strike. There needs to be someone from the unions (whether ASLEF or RMT etc) on the news every day, explaining what's going on in a reasonable manner.

    I don't know whether any of the current union leadership can do that, but you've got to get the message across, on the TV, on the radio, in the Standard and the national papers. Good luck!

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    1. The problem is that the news, whether print or broadcast, is mostly biased against unions, we can't force them to print our words or interview us so the public only get one side of the story. The subStandard is notoriously anti-union which can't be a surprise as its mostly owned (and seemingly edited) by a Russian billionaire although Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, still holds a 25% share.

      If I won the lottery tonight I'd be tempted to publish my own free London paper, 100% free of Cara Delevingne and which parties the owner had been seen at that week.

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  2. I heard that most of the negotiators are ex-Virgin Rail. Probably all this Griffiths characters mates? Like you said, they don't seem very experienced in negotiating or understanding The Tube. Perhaps, henceforth we can just refer to them as "The Virgins" or The Virgin Steve Griffiths??

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    1. An ASLEF statement from Friday said that all but one of the negotiating team were new but the one experienced member "looked between a rock and a hard place". I don't know how much contact there is between Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Rail but even so Griffiths only joined in May, I don't see how he could have got his mates in so quickly. Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away...........

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    2. Nope, Virgin Atlantic

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  3. Not only have LU managed to unite (no pun...) four trade unions in opposition which must be unprecedented, but they are now reaching parts of the workforce other managements have never been able to reach (the "Carlsburg Affect"?). The blatant attempt to buy off drivers at the expense of other staff affected by Night Tube (the £2000 minus 40% tax) has now enraged other grades. I can confirm that staff at the LUCC will be taking strike action this time. Not all of them, and maybe they should have taken action before, and they will get others to cover the positions, but such an event is unprecedented.

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    1. I believe the last time we all went out at the same time was 1926, back when RMT were NUR, TSSA were RCA and Unite were TGWU.

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    2. I think the TGWU were just the Transport Workers it was so long ago.

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    3. Many other grades, including middle Management. LU have head in sand on this.

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  4. Actually Bond Aviation has some track record of coming down to earth with a bump.

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  5. Can't someone explain to the media that the unions didn't reject the offer outright like they're portraying it. It makes us look bad to the public which I know is what they're trying to do but surely there's a way for us to tell our side. Like we offered to give a response to the offer by midday today rather than after only 6 hours! Also, am I right in reading on a union statement, that it's not 2% but rather equivalent to 2% made up of the one off payments. So it's not even a pensionable raise!

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  6. one1 % rise an 500 bonus makes around 2% so its not 2% plus £500 launch bonus they are combined

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  7. I personally think the whole approach is skewed. First things first it's quite obvious that the night shifts for drivers should be paid at a higher rate - as a driver currently in the project pool I baulk at the idea of somebody in the mafia on 9-5's Monday to Friday enjoying a pay increase for something that doesn't even affect them.

    The four day week is something that should be been proposed solely for full-time CSAs of whom (let's face it) do the majority of the nitty gritty on the network. They will be most affected by this the most yet are paid the least across the combine. The unions did nothing for them during the Fit for the Future talks, yet many acted surprised when some crossed the picket line on strike days. They are always forgotten and it's simply not fair.

    The majority of supervisors I have met (and I've worked at four different groups during my career so far) spend all day and night sat in their office watching films on their iPad or refusing to help their staff when they're needed, so I don't see on what planet they deserve a four day week themselves.

    If these things were implemented then I think the 2% for the first year and the 1% for others is actually a reasonable offer (although it would be good if they could hash out a 5 year deal instead of the 3 year one currently on the table)

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    1. I think Supervisors like all grades have their fair share of muppets, CSAs and Train Ops included. However I agree that CSAs have been royally done over by this and probably have it worst with regard to the amount of new stuff they are supposed to do with no extra benefits

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    2. Even if they are in the Mafia I doubt if anyone works permanent 9-5/M-F but when their Night tube week comes the Mafia are going to struggle to find anyone who wants to swap it so they end up working their own duties that week.

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    3. Sorry? 'The unions did nothing for CSAs, but many surprised when they crossed picket line?' So CSAs have issues, but expect others (who lose MORE money for striking if paid more) to strike for them? No wonder drivers etc. don't support, if they don't even support themselves!
      If you think unions not supporting you-raise your voice. You are the union, FFS.

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    4. Nothing was put on the table for CSAs. Absolutely nothing. The unions were scrambling to save the salaries of higher paid workers and in the process left the station staff at the lowest rung of the ladder with nothing. When the CSAs went on strike they did it PURELY for their colleagues, with no self interest at all. It has been raised with the union at meetings but very much brushed aside, and continues to be.

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  8. You seem to be using 'seem' an awful lot. This makes it seem you are speculating. Some facts on this would be useful, could you perhaps say when you think the conversation started on how Night Tube rosters might best work? I'll give you a clue, it was before the middle of last year

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    1. To the best of my knowledge there was no discussion with the unions about Night Tube until February, if you have any information that suggest otherwise please share it.

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    2. Maybe for stations side, no way for trains. Unions kept asking, LU kept fobbing off, couldn't decide which was best forum to discuss in. There has been no, repeat no, discussion with trains side how rosters would work; as LU decided issue should be combined with pay talks, and not interested in current agreements, work/life balance, fatigue guidelines etc.

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    3. That is not true, whoever is telling you this is not being frank and I'd suggest you consider why this might be.

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    4. (Reply to Anon @ 9th 06:57) Hello Mr (most likely lowish grade, newish, clueless, graduate maybe?) Manager; nice to see you on the ball so early on strike day! Hope you come back to read this.
      I suggest whoever is spinning you a line is not being frank, and wonder why you are swallowing their dick whole?
      Are you suggesting that info ASLEF put out earlier in week, including minutes, was their invention? That they made up requested Duty Schedules make explanations about our current agreements, & LU 'negotiation team' (clowns) said no need, as they were 'above that'?
      What on earth would make you think that we would doubt our reps above proven liars?

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  9. The bonus for working nights or any extra rest day should only go to the staff who work nights. I understand that staff, on lines who are not working nights would lose out on any bonus though. And I disagree with the RMT position which is complain, about the latest offer, that not all Drivers will get the £2,000.

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  10. Doubting Terrapin7 July 2015 at 20:43

    Couple of points - some repeating what's above but to get across that this (retired) TSSA member is fully supportive of the action being taken..
    1 - mass media is reported by a body called the 'Press Council' as being 74% Tory-supporting. So 'we' don't even get a fair crack at presenting our cases, and 'they' always have the last word.
    2 - under no circumstances should anyone accept 'non-consolidated' pay awards - pensions are deferred earnings, and we pay for those (as I did) by what we work to earn. I never sacrificed my later years for the comfort of my earlier ones, even if at times the bills piled up faster than I could pay them. Go without something else, don't play with your pensions.
    3 - not mentioned so far is that operational systems CAN'T cope with 24 hour running - the payment systems need to shut down to talk to those nice warm friendly banks without whom we wouldn't be in the present mess. Oyster deductions have to be reconciled, which can't be done while the payment collection system is 'live', and contactless payments for the past 24 hour period (bus and train - remember buses work round the clock but download the data from on-bus to depot at the ends of duties) has to be allocated to banks and deducted from accounts. And the best one of the lot, from a very senior LU person, the Central Line has no reserve of power, as the generating kit runs flat out in traffic hours. It has to go off in 'Engineering Hours' to cool down - that's one of the reasons Greenwich is being resurrected - aircon trains use more juice than non-aircon, and the Central Line trains are just greedy. Greenwich boosts don't come online until (2018?), so where's the reliable kit to generate the extra track power? Maybe this has all changed since these technical hitches were first aired earlier this year? Underground systems management computers aren't programmed to run all-night either, so the software needs a rewrite. No computer is an island, they all talk to each other - I'd bet a week's pension that no-one in LU knows which computers talk to which others and when... If this has stayed true - the source is impeccable and said this in front of witnesses - the Underground can't run all night (and collect fares), so maybe we're being set up to take the blame for something unworkable.
    4 - my understanding is that the T&G wasn't formed until 1932!

    End of over-long attempt at clarifications...

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    1. TGWU was formed in 1922. Thanks for the info, all interesting stuff.

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    2. Wow, this is amazing stuff. Some quite relevant to my perspective. Can you advise how might approach getting some of this data?

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    3. All the technical issue you mention, and others, are fixed. Do you have more theories?

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    4. Hi Mr Manager again! Were they all discussed fully with those affected, and/or in the public domain, as should have been?

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  11. This strike can be laid firmly at the door of Boris. Ill thought out plans railroaded through as a vanity project for his last hurrah.
    Good luck to you all.

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  12. There's no way that revenue from night-tube users is going to cover even a fraction of the costs. TfL are very reliant on the subsidy derived from taxation, and this element is very much at the wish and whim of the beancounters in Whitehall and City Hall. The great unwashed have a huge disconnect when it comes to direct and indirect taxation - (e.g. that the money that pays for advertising-funded TV channels doesn't come out of their pockets but the BBC license fee does). So when it's revealed in three years that LU subsidy has increased by >10% since 2015, there will be uproar without understanding why that is or where the money comes from.

    As for the LU management... despicable. Underhanded, idiotic, divisive, counter-productive and sleazy. Even though one could see it coming a mile off.

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  13. Words fail me. So, announcing Night Tube as a smokescreen for broken electoral promises and cuts to staff and passenger services isn't political, but strikes against this and worsening of terms and conditions is? The comments of the so-called Transport Minister really reveals what the Tories, freed from their Lib Dem shackles, are really like. And I've never seen such a lack of leadership at the top of LU and TFL, barely anyone left who's worked in an operating grade (even just briefly as a fast-tracked graduate). The roll-call of those leaving the organisation since the change of mayor is indicative - Tom O'Toole, Howard Collins and now Peter Hendy all gone, plus many more from the level below who might have been the inspirational leaders of tomorrow. More and more career 'managers' who flit from one well-paid job to another, with no loyalty to staff, passengers or Londoners; but only to themselves. I get the feeling LU want the strike to put the kibosh on Night Tube so that they can blame the unions for stopping something they don't want, and if the TUs get further emasculated by law after this, so much the better. The TFL intranet is giving guidelines to Surface Transport staff (i.e. buses) on attendance during the strike, yet no similar document has appeared online for Underground employees. Aren't they expecting anyone to turn up? No one has asked me how I am going to get home from work today, or into work tomorrow, or made any contingency arrangements. No team meetings, briefings etc. During the Wildcat Strikes and then Company Plan we were bombarded with propaganda. Have they just given up? If nothing else, the policy of using financial increments separate from the salary/pension is completely unacceptable and has to be fought here and now. The separate £2000 offered to T/Ops only has been seen for what it is, a cynical attempt to divide and fall, and has just antagonised even more people. I will be following the ASLEF rules - i.e. attend work tonight as I start just before 2130 but not coming in for Thurs night. I hate nights anyway, so it'll be a small bonus to miss one, and I certainly don't want to do more of them, especially at weekends!

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    1. "Divide and rule", obviously...

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  14. The problem you chaps have is that the public see you as being overpaid already - comparable to middle ranking doctors (also working night shifts) who have had to take on student debt and then train on extremely low pay to get their jobs.

    You are also viewed as being greedy, ungrateful, unskilled, uneducated and not very clever. Doubtless (from reading this forum) this is not necessarily true but you do have a public image problem that is not entirely the fault of the press.

    Wouldn't it have been wiser (just for a little while) to have kept your heads down, counted yourselves lucky to be paid what you are, and - for once, when your generous and undemanding boss asked you to jump - have said "How high ?" and without having asked for spondoolicks to do it ?

    I suppose that your only recourse is to withdraw your labour and harm the economy.

    What would I do if I were in charge ? Hmm.

    I'd reduce the already low entry requirements to become a train driver then mass recruit. Preferably keen people from abroad with big mortgages so that they would be reluctant to vote for a strike and would cross picket lines after a short while. I'd claim that this policy is in the interests diversity and equal opportunity - and how could the unions argue against it ?

    I'd create a surplus of staff - stockpiling drivers as the Thatcher government stockpiled coal with the miners.

    I'd then push through new laws on the legality of ballots and required turnouts. The demographics would change the attitude towards strike actions and one-off incentive payments, the votership swinging more to what management would like.

    Once done I'd start on a programme of redundancies saying to you "Well chaps. You're going to have to accept pay freezes/cuts and be more flexible - or we're going to have to start culling jobs."

    In the background would be the development of Satnav technologies (automation), EU driver licensing to enable EU workers with rules and simulator training, privately funded and gained outside the industry (as airline pilots are) to compete for your jobs too.

    Whatever. By now I'd be forming the opinion that you must be broken in the full knowledge and that the general public are behind me - no matter how much it cost.

    (Actually this is not what I want. But it is what I can see happening.)




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    1. There are many issues with that. Firstly, training as a driver currently takes 12-16 weeks. Who trains the drivers? That right - other drivers. Will they volunteer to train the people that will see them out of a job? Not likely. The image problem is very much a problem with the press, as the Evening Standard is full of Boris Johnson's friends and many daily newspapers are Tory-leaning. That is exactly the reason most people view us as not very bright, fat old white men (I am a university educated, young black woman)

      It is not realistic for the workers to say 'how high?' to an upheaval of their family and personal lives. There are drivers and station staff at every station and depot that would happily volunteer for night duties. The company is not interested in this - they want the whole combine to sign a contract that will essentially have employees at their disposal. The redundancies are already in full swing, which means a double whammy of lower staffing levels and more unsociable hours. Doing more work on less sleep. That can be deadly in our line of work.

      I honestly think that since Bob Crow died the image of the unions has gotten a lot worse. He was a very intelligent man - unapologetic for his beliefs but likeable (for some) at the same time. The PR skills of current leaders leaves much to be desired.

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    2. The person writing the post I am replying to (8 July @ 22:07) clearly has no idea whatsoever how a railway is run, but would certainly like to have a go. Pretty much like current LU management...

      - As mentioned above, the required training for an LU driver is about 12-16 weeks - which is still short compared to 40-something weeks that it takes to train a person off the street for mainline railway driving duties. Good luck with the mass training exercise.
      - Stockpiling drivers - yes I'd love to see who on Earth would like to take up zero-hours contracts for train driving. I'd also like to see the business case for this from LU's point of view: investing 12-16 weeks of work in training people, then letting that investment go to waste (how often do you need to do duties before you have to re-train?)
      - Any new law with regard to industrial relations would need to be in line with EU labour law. Changing the law would potentially set the government up for a very expensive and politically painful dispute at Strasbourg.
      - Automating existing lines takes between 7 and 10 years, has only been done twice (Nuremburg and Paris), and is probably unfeasible from a technological point of view on most LU lines. Not to mention it would cost a few billion per line - you would effectively be spending somewhere in the range of £20-£30bn to remove drivers. Pray tell, what would be the cost-benefit ratio of such an operation, particularly if you take into account the fact, that Crossrail 1 has a budget of ca. £16bn.

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    3. I didn't know Nuremberg had been converted to driverless, thank you.

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    4. Nuremberg's U3 (which shares tracks with U2) was opened as a driverless metro in 2008, with driverless trains on the U3 sharing tracks with human-operated ones on the U2. The U2 was then converted to driverless operation in due course.

      The U3 opened 2 years late in 2008 with a sizeable budget overrun.

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    5. Meanwhile at LUL they can't even get ATO on the Sub Surface Lines because Bombardier Cityflo can't handle the Aldgate triangle.....

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    6. Actually you are a complete & utter knob, and nobody cares what you are suggesting.
      Of course we always get the 'greedy drivers, all about money' shit.And the 'bring on driverless, sack them all'.
      We also get (and got Thurs), a lot of support. From people disrupted, which we didn't want to do. Big Mouth Boris started this, & the new wimps in LU haven't got balls to call him out.
      We have LONG STANDING agreements. You don't come in & say 'forget them, we'll tell you when & where you'll work' & expect us to say 'Oh all right then, we'll just shit on those that fought for them-and fuck anyone that follows us into job in future, for some dirty silver today'.

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  15. The classroom training can be done in any classroom run by any accredited agency. That would complete, say, 40% of the coursework before the driver has even got a job. (I wouldn't put it past the Tories to fund this sort of thing)

    I'm sure the unions will be glad of the extra membership and are famous for misunderstanding suppy/demand economics and its effect on wages.

    Who trains the drivers in the hands-on stuff ? I'm sure that can be got around too - especially where the candidates are women or from ethnic minorities to redress imbalances. Will Aslef dare to hinder their opportunities ?

    There need be no more work nor less sleep. Especially where everyone does their bit. And for any timetabled service voluntary arrangements cannot be relied upon. Perhaps this night service issue is Bo Jo's gauntlet to you. Personally I wouldn't have risen to it and - as someone said on a news blog recently - "If I were paid £50k a year for pressing a button I'd be keeping as quiet as possible about it." Unfair, perhaps, but a common perception with the public.

    What the public really need to see from you is the eloquence and intelligence demonstrated on this blog. I would also argue that £50k a year does not go far in London and that it is just shy of the upper welfare limits when the claimant is able to max it our. But the comparison with doctors and senior military ranks is something that is difficult for people to comprehend and for you to shake off. A doctor takes 6 years to train, not 16 weeks.

    Bob Crow was an exceptional man, I agree. He saw the dangers of the EU to the UK workforce as did Tony Benn..

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  16. To Anon 10,26

    I hadn't considered zero hours but now you mention it...

    Who would want to be a stockpiled driver ? Lots would. At £30 an hour with the promise of a full time position at some point.

    Then there are the incalculable sums lost in London industrial disputes that could be eradicated in the long term by sorting this out in the short term. It makes the Strasbourg costs a worthwhile punt - especially where Aslef is accused of hindering the redress of the ethnic/female lack of representation in the grade.

    Automation ? Perhaps I've underestimated its cost. But I can see a time where both mainline and LU drivers will be competing with anyone holding an EU train driver's licence - especially if European signalling becomes normal and satnav technology reduces the requirement to learn routes. A while off perhaps. But more pressing the more disputes there are.

    Finally. I am not against you. I am trying to alert you.





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    1. Err...what is "European signalling"?? Please reply. I am genuinely bemused and interested. Signal operators?! They are in our unions and take all the benefits our union offer. Yet most are probably not out on strike today as they should be.

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  17. ERTMS

    In-cab signalling. Probably with the capability of piggy backing fully automated control when it becomes more economic. Thus minimising handling/route learning training.

    Couple this with people being part qualified in rules and regs before they come to the industry - as airline pilots are - then your training can be reduced drastically from 12-16 weeks down to something more akin to bus driving, and the pay made commensurate with that.

    If I were a Tory minister this is how I'd be thinking.

    The country simply cannot afford to have its capital held to ransom over this and there is zero public sympathy for your case as there was with the miners.

    What was wrong with considering yourselves well off and keeping your heads down a bit ? Surely night duty is part of shift work ? I think you've made yourselves the #1 targets here and in previous stoppages.

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    1. With ERTMS any language competent driver with an EU train driver licence can slot into the job easily.

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    2. Do route and rolling stock knowledge requirements go away with ERTMS? Because they are a large percentage of a driver's/TOp's knowledge.

      Also, as pointed out earlier, while automatic train operating systems can probably be installed on most lines, there is still much doubt whether the resignalling of the sub-surface side can be delivered, and even LU admits some form of staff presence will be required on board trains, even if said presence does not sit in a cab.

      However many aspects of a railway you automate, there will always have to be a human being somewhere, without whom the system will not run, and who will have highly-specialised skills that cannot be readily replaced. Get rid of drivers, and the tube can still be crippled by a strike of route controllers, signallers, or maintenance staff.

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    3. Speaking maintenance staff, I bumped into one of the track maintenance guys today in the mess when starting my shift. He commented that they wanted him to change his shifts from Monday-Friday to Sunday to Thursday - and he was not happy to do this. So that is something else that has been left to the last minute without actually negotiating anything with the people who do the job.

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    4. Night duties are, yes. We have night duties at my depot. That is not the issue. The issue is a proposed roster that sees drivers having one weekend off every 27 weeks. I don't care what anyone says - that is ridiculous. Full automation cannot occur on lines that share track with National Rail. That means both the Metropolitan and Bakerloo lines are absolute non-starters. Train Captains trying to fix a defect on a train at rush hour in a deep level tunnel? Ha! Don't make me laugh! Imagine trying to find space to walk three cars down on a packed train full of panicking passengers, remove a seat to get to the valves and fight your way back to the front of the train... in the dark... in the middle of summer.

      Being able to move from TOC to TOC across Europe isn't such a bad idea, although I doubt many existing drivers would wish to transfer. We're actually lowest on the pay scale when it comes to driving - London Overground drivers are on £55K, as will the new Crossrail drivers. Eurostar? £60-70K. Southeastern? 55-60K.

      Yes, we are paid well which is why a pay increase is not in dispute. We couldn't give a stuff about pay. What we do care about is having time to see our children, look after our parents and spend time with our friends more than once every four to five months. I don't know about you but I work to live, I certainly don't live to work.

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    5. Just so hard to explain - yes, we already have nights; yes, other professions work nights- it's the way these rosters would be appalling for our health, welfare & work/life balance, and whatever they say were trying to IMPOSE.
      Re all the auto/training stuff- surely even if using 'satnav' signaling, would need to be fully conversant with route in case of computer failure?
      What does a car driver do if satnav fails? Sit there until a 'controller' contacts them to tell how finish journey? Wait for the emergency services?Or get their A-Z out, use previous knowledge etc.

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  18. 1 in 27 weekends off on 50k a year (with only 16 weeks of training.) Well cry me a river.

    If you don't like the conditions then you could always leave and become properly skilled workers instead.

    If you see entry requirements being diminished, mass recruitment, outsourced pre-training and automation coming in then you know what they're up to.

    They'll be swinging the supply/demand ratio of the labour force into management's favour so that strikes are less likely or effective.



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