wages staff and salried staff

[caradoc]

Yes, I used to get overtime as TO, STO, PTO, all ‘salaried’, but effectively not as soon as I became MS1, which meant that it was really only worth taking the post for “prospects”, because it involved an effective pay cut.

 

Nobody has mentioned a key difference between a salaried canteen and an officers’ mess: beer in the former; wine in the latter.

 

Absolutely, and when I became an MS1 (after being displaced from my previous Grade D post) none of the Grade E Controllers applied for the job due to the money issue. MS overtime was only paid every 13 weeks and it was the first 20 hours of that which was unpaid. It meant it was possible to work a 12 hour Sunday turn (paid at time and 3/4) and if no other O/T was worked in the 13 weeks, get paid 1 hour for it !

 

It should be noted that some staff had no choice in becoming MS as their jobs were re-organised into that grade, so there were some (not me I hasten to add) who got the 20 hours 'back' by taking sick days !

[Trog]

Only 18 hours. PWay slacking again. My best was 26 hours on a Sunday day turn which got me home in time for Monday lunch. Over a longer period it was 42 hours on site out of 60 hours on a Friday night to Monday morning signalling changeover.

 

Slacking this is the P. Way Technical staff we are talking about here, none of your S&T fiddle with a couple of wires for ten minutes before retiring to the van for a kip type shifts!  The 18hr shifts with no break, (we typically added the half hour on at the end of the shift) were the norm for the week end, on top of doing additional midweek night turns so your pay slip for the week would show that you had worked six or seven days during the week plus the long shift at the week end. My personal best was a shift running from about 4am on Saturday to 5pm on Sunday, although a couple of my colleague's were sent home from their Saturday night shift by management on Tuesday morning. I also still have several 1980's pay slips for weeks with over a 100 hours on them.

 

When you got home on Sunday evening you generally went to bed early and slept until Monday, so you would feel OK on the Monday, by Tuesday your body would have realised that the previous week had eight days and six nights in it and the office looked like an episode of a zombie film with knackered staff shuffling about. 

[The Johnster]

Wages are paid weekly at an hourly rate, Salaries monthly at an annual rate.

 

I suppose it's analogous to the division between 'officers' and 'men' in the armed services, but there there is also the distinction that the men's food is provided for them but the officers have to organise and pay for their own mess arrangements.

[The Stationmaster]

Yes, I used to get overtime as TO, STO, PTO, all ‘salaried’, but effectively not as soon as I became MS1, which meant that it was really only worth taking the post for “prospects”, because it involved an effective pay cut.

 

Nobody has mentioned a key difference between a salaried canteen and an officers’ mess: beer in the former; wine in the latter.

 

I was promoted from a Grade D (salaried supervisory rate of pay) Asst Area Manager's post to an MS1 (management range 1) Asst Area Manager's post in April 1974, i.e from a grade where I was paid overtime to one where I wasn't paid overtime.  My tax year on tax year earnings dropped by c.£1,500 pa asa. result of losing overtime and Sunday etc payments while doing the same, if not more, hours.  Which also explained why when covering an MS1 post at Swansea at the back end of 1973 I refused the offer of higher grade pay - I remained on my own rate plus any overtime plus full day & night expenses   

 

'Overtime' pay for Management grade staff was introduced c.1976 but if I remember rightly I think you had to do the 20 additional hours in a 4 week period before you could claim any overtime payment, many of us simply didn't bother and would have much preferred an increase in the range scales instead (BR Management Grade and above posts had a salary range for each grade and these overlapped; thus, e.g. maximum MS1 rate of pay was higher than minimum MS2 rate and so on).

 

In the old days of the 1960s at Paddington there was a wages grade canteen near the outer end of Platform 1, a Staff Dining Club for salaried staff on the top floor of the office block on Bishops Bridge Road (above Platform 1A), and the Officers' Mess was I believe in the GW Hotel back then.  There was nearly a riot when the Staff dining Club closed and was replaced by a fairly small cafeteria on the Eastbourne Terrace side of the buildings alongside Platform 1.  When we moved to Swindon in 1984/85 there was single 'all grades' cafeteria.

[The Stationmaster]

Wages are paid weekly at an hourly rate, Salaries monthly at an annual rate.

 

 

 

But not on BR of course where salaries were paid 4 weekly and you therefore had 13 pay days every year (as my BR pension also does of course).

[Trog]

But not on BR of course where salaries were paid 4 weekly and you therefore had 13 pay days every year (as my BR pension also does of course).

 

Good old British Rail always had to be different, confuses the hell out of bank staff when they have to convert your 'monthly' income to the yearly total.

I nearly had a mortgage refused once because the monthly figure times twelve did not come to what I had stated was my yearly income. 

 

Although for my first mortgage I needed a letter to confirm what my earnings were, so I went down to see the head clerk on the Paybills Section to ask if he could do me this letter. His response was no problem how much do you want me to tell them you earn?

[Fat Controller]

But not on BR of course where salaries were paid 4 weekly and you therefore had 13 pay days every year (as my BR pension also does of course).

A legacy of this is to be seen at RSSB, which is paid four-weekly, rather than at the end of calendar months.

[Martin Shaw]

Was it really 1976 Stationmaster, hardly seems like yesterday. There was I think a general pay review of salaried staff at that time, which generally meant that everyone went up a grade. At that time I wasn't on the top rate for STOs so I stayed as I was. As a result all my colleagues who had been STOs became MS1s and lost out significantly, not only that as well as my own overtime I picked up the odd hours they didn't want cos they weren't going to work for nothing, I was taking home at least as much as my MS2 boss.

Martin

[Oldddudders]

I had been a Relief SM Grade D from December 1977, and there was an agreement that if you covered a % (was it 50%, or maybe less?) of work at a higher grade in 12 months you could claim regrading to that grade. Most of my covers were for MS1, so in September 1978 I claimed the promotion. A couple of other guys had paralleled me - but they had worked all sorts of weekend shifts and extras, so they risked money being taken back if they went for retrospective regrading. Being a lazy sort of gink, I had done minimum overtime, so was able to take the regrading backdated to my entitlement date. Next year all three of us got a substantive MS1 post, so it didn't matter much anyway. 

[Mark Saunders]

I had been a Relief SM Grade D from December 1977, and there was an agreement that if you covered a % (was it 50%, or maybe less?) of work at a higher grade in 12 months you could claim regrading to that grade. Most of my covers were for MS1, so in September 1978 I claimed the promotion. A couple of other guys had paralleled me - but they had worked all sorts of weekend shifts and extras, so they risked money being taken back if they went for retrospective regrading. Being a lazy sort of gink, I had done minimum overtime, so was able to take the regrading backdated to my entitlement date. Next year all three of us got a substantive MS1 post, so it didn't matter much anyway.

 

If you worked the job on HGD for six months you could claim the grade as a personal! However the chief clerk normally made sure you did not get to the six months!

[Davexoc]

But not on BR of course where salaries were paid 4 weekly and you therefore had 13 pay days every year (as my BR pension also does of course).

BR weren't the only ones to do this.

Anyway, if you budget every month to be covered by four weeks pay, the extra month becomes a bonus for holidays, Christmas, or whatever.....

 

Dave

[TheSignalEngineer]

If you worked the job on HGD for six months you could claim the grade as a personal! However the chief clerk normally made sure you did not get to the six months!

Our Admin Manager's view was that you shouldn't get paid HGD for annual leave then once you took a day off the six months started again so couldn't claim the grade on a personal basis. Didn't argue with him as I was then able to claim that as I was effectively being paid HGD on a daily basis, if I did my normal job at the weekend or went out assisting with hands-on testing work and was not carrying out management duties I should be paid overtime at my normal rate.

[TheSignalEngineer]

But not on BR of course where salaries were paid 4 weekly and you therefore had 13 pay days every year (as my BR pension also does of course).

Before we were paid by Bank Transfer our salary was paid fortnightly in cash from the booking office. 

[Bernard Lamb]

Good old British Rail always had to be different, confuses the hell out of bank staff when they have to convert your 'monthly' income to the yearly total.

I nearly had a mortgage refused once because the monthly figure times twelve did not come to what I had stated was my yearly income. 

 

Although for my first mortgage I needed a letter to confirm what my earnings were, so I went down to see the head clerk on the Paybills Section to ask if he could do me this letter. His response was no problem how much do you want me to tell them you earn?

 

The state old age pension is paid every 4 weeks so not just a BR thing.

Your comment re a mortgage rings a bell. How much do you need me to put down was the comment when I first asked for a salary reference.

        But life was much more simple and easy going back in the 1970s when my solicitor was the solicitor for the local building society and the company I worked for was known to be a good paying company.

Bernard

[John M Upton]

I can confirm railway staff are still paid on a four weekly basis even today and yes, it does cause confusion with the younglings that banks insist on filling their branches with these days (assuming there are any branches still open that is).

[The Stationmaster]

Before we were paid by Bank Transfer our salary was paid fortnightly in cash from the booking office. 

 

That was the standard arrangement for salaried staff at one time although I opted for bank transfer when I joined in 1966 as it seemed not only straightforward but if you opted for it BR paid your bank charges which struck me as a nice little deal.

[caradoc]

Paying every four weeks, instead of monthly, is surely a better way because payday will always be on the same day of the week, plus as mentioned above once a year there is a payday with no mortgage payment due. The same applies to my railway pension, and I'm glad it does, because from this month's money I have no utility bill to pay (which helpfully coincides with Hatton's sale !).

 

When I was growing up my Mum was a teacher who was paid monthly, however payday was adjusted to be always on a Friday, which meant that four times a year there were 5 weeks between paydays; We certainly felt the effects of that !

[jjb1970]

Personally I prefer twelve equal payments as it seems to make more sense to have the same monthly payment twelve times a year. I remember in electricity there was a threat of strike action when the company asked non-professional staff if they'd agree to be paid monthly rather than 4 weekly (the other lot were already paid monthly), it struck me as a bit daft to immediately threaten a strike in response to a request to consider changing and even the suggestion that people could request to change to monthly pay if they wanted to as the company made no attempt to impose it and it was purely a question. Looking through this thread it seems like the matters raised are a microcosm for the traditional labour relations and class system.

[TheSignalEngineer]

That was the standard arrangement for salaried staff at one time although I opted for bank transfer when I joined in 1966 as it seemed not only straightforward but if you opted for it BR paid your bank charges which struck me as a nice little deal.

I think it was 1967 that we were offered 4 weekly bank transfer on the LM. I remember getting an allowance for bank charges if you agreed to change.

[The Stationmaster]

Personally I prefer twelve equal payments as it seems to make more sense to have the same monthly payment twelve times a year. I remember in electricity there was a threat of strike action when the company asked non-professional staff if they'd agree to be paid monthly rather than 4 weekly (the other lot were already paid monthly), it struck me as a bit daft to immediately threaten a strike in response to a request to consider changing and even the suggestion that people could request to change to monthly pay if they wanted to as the company made no attempt to impose it and it was purely a question. Looking through this thread it seems like the matters raised are a microcosm for the traditional labour relations and class system.

 

Depends whether you want it in equal payments at a consistent pace I suppose - which is the big advantage of 4 weekly payment as any overtime/expenses (or pay rises etc) apart you get exactly the same money on the same day of the week every 4 weeks.

 

The only disadvantage can be in relation to Bank h Holidays, especially Christmas because the 4 weekly cycle might not exactly match when you most need the money (i.e you get paid the week after Christmas) but presumably the same would happen with monthly payments.  If you get equal monthly payments 12 times a year you run into a slight problem because there are 52 weeks in the year as well as varying lengths of each month, so one month has, in effect, to pay an extra week or that extra week is somehow spread over several months.  With 4 weekly payment it divides an annual salary exactly into 13 equal payments over 52 weeks plus the length of the months becomes irrelevant and taking account of any increase in the rate of pay is much simpler.

[The Johnster]

My post office pension is paid monthly, the only thing I have ever had paid in such a way as I my other incomes have always been weekly wages or fortnightly/28 day government pensions or allowances.  It can lead to problems with 5-weekend months especially where bank holidays are involved and new year's day is on a Monday.  It is paid on the last working day of the month, which can be nearly a week before the next month starts in this case; January has 31 days and if you have to wait for Monday at the end of it...

 

A 28/9 day February usually restores the balance, but you have to be very careful not to overspend at xmas, when the desire to overspend is at it's greatest.

Edited November 5, 2018 by The Johnster

[Colin_McLeod]

Paying every four weeks, instead of monthly, is surely a better way because payday will always be on the same day of the week, plus as mentioned above once a year there is a payday with no mortgage payment due. The same

If you can afford to make a mortgage payment that 4 week period anyway (even if not the normal amount) it can knock years and thousands of your mortgage overall.