Could the unions bid for a railway concession?

[phil-b259]

12 minutes ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

You've totally missed the point then. If the operator was run as a not-for-profit by a collective of workers (under the overall umbrella of an arms-length company created by a trade union) you'd never, ever have a strike and other key indicators like sickness and staff turnover would be exponentially better. The collective/co-operative could employ its own management team based on their ability and with a genuine financial incentive in the success of the company rather than being on the management-go-round conveyor belt of people who foul up somewhere and then move onto the next company. It was tried with considerable success by some of the privatised bus companies back in the day (the largest was Yorkshire Rider) but their model was to make all the staff shareholders and ultimately they took the bag of silver dangled by a large plc and sold out to them. 

Trouble is that it's all too "non-tory" for the current government to contemplate or for those who have spent the last 42 years living under right  of centre governments to begin to understand.

 

 

Its understandable enough - John Lewes Partnership have been doing much the same thing for a lot longer than 42 years!

 

The problem - as you have alluded to is that unless you live in a communist state such an entity can look like a good 'business opportunity' for others to try and take over and they know humans are at heart a greedy bunch.

 

Just take a look at what happed around three decades ago as the building societies promised account holders wads of cash if they converted to banks

 

Its a fact that any 'collective' business can be progressively undermined if the people at the top (and don't kid yourself EVERY organisation needs a strong management structure to function - just look at the supposed Socialist Utopia that was the Soviet Union) allow themselves to be seduced by the siren calls of capitalism....

Edited May 23, 2021 by phil-b259

[ikcdab]

13 minutes ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

You've totally missed the point then. If the operator was run as a not-for-profit by a collective of workers (under the overall umbrella of an arms-length company created by a trade union) you'd never, ever have a strike and other key indicators like sickness and staff turnover would be exponentially better. The collective/co-operative could employ its own management team based on their ability and with a genuine financial incentive in the success of the company rather than being on the management-go-round conveyor belt of people who foul up somewhere and then move onto the next company. It was tried with considerable success by some of the privatised bus companies back in the day (the largest was Yorkshire Rider) but their model was to make all the staff shareholders and ultimately they took the bag of silver dangled by a large plc and sold out to them. 

Trouble is that it's all too "non-tory" for the current government to contemplate or for those who have spent the last 42 years living under right  of centre governments to begin to understand.

 

Blimey, that sounds very much like the sort of thing propounded by Lenin and his cronies - apart, that is, from the financial incentives you say you will pay the management.

You still have a management/employee culture so I'm not sure how you can say you would never get strikes. I agree that staff turnover would be low, but staff absences would skyrocket, as seen under most nationalised regimes.

The ultimate problem is that nowhere do you mention the need to improve efficiency or to improve customer satisfaction. It seems to me that these sort of arrangements are developed solely for the employees' benefit with no thought about the passengers. 

To be honest this is where most british nationalised industries got to in the 1960s and 1970s with disasterous effects on the future of those industries...

[62613]

20 hours ago, rab said:

Imagine the chaos there'd be.

We think the service is bad now! 

Why?

 

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

1 hour ago, ikcdab said:

Blimey, that sounds very much like the sort of thing propounded by Lenin and his cronies - apart, that is, from the financial incentives you say you will pay the management.

You still have a management/employee culture so I'm not sure how you can say you would never get strikes. I agree that staff turnover would be low, but staff absences would skyrocket, as seen under most nationalised regimes.

The ultimate problem is that nowhere do you mention the need to improve efficiency or to improve customer satisfaction. It seems to me that these sort of arrangements are developed solely for the employees' benefit with no thought about the passengers. 

To be honest this is where most british nationalised industries got to in the 1960s and 1970s with disasterous effects on the future of those industries...

And that is the trouble. After 40 years of right wing indoctrination as soon as anyone talks about an employee owned business which has partners instead of staff people say "Lenin" before they say "John Lewis". I feel I need to ask, how many self employed people do you think go on strike?! There is efficiency in an employee owned model as long as it doesn't become a top heavy, inefficient lumbering organisation that just wastes money and leeches off profit, and the employee owned (and possibly union offshoot organised) structure is a whole world away from nationalised, but Thatcher (and Major) have told you that private is good/public is bad so many times and for so long that you've forgotten that a badly managed, under funded and generally neglected utility became the norm here but the exception elsewhere in Europe, notably in Germany where state owned railways became a beacon of efficiency.

 

[Coryton]

7 minutes ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

 a badly managed, under funded and generally neglected utility became the norm here but the exception elsewhere in Europe, notably in Germany where state owned railways became a beacon of efficiency.

 

 

Wasn't BR pretty efficient by the time it was privatised?

 

 

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

Events involving the recently retired RMT General Secretary would indicate that Trade Unions are not always perfect employers. And while it would be interesting to see, for example, Manuel Cortes of my former Union, the TSSA, having to take responsibility for managing the railway rather than simply criticising those who do, I don't see it happening, for the very reason that having to run (and be blamed for) something yourself is very different from simply moaning about it. 

 

 

 

Judging by his various public, moaning, utterances I sincerely doubt if Manuel Cortes actually understands enough about the railway industry to run any part of.  Alas having left the TSSA when I retired my current situation as a non member denies me the opportunity of being able to show my opinion of him by withdrawing my subs to the union.

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

IIRC for a while the Railway Pension Fund (not sure whether just NR or everyone) had a scheme whereby, up to a limit, an employee's Additional Voluntary Contributions were matched by the employer; Effectively money for nothing ! This scheme, plus the fact that pension contributions are tax-free, were major factors allowing me to retire at 57. 

 

Sounds to me to be BRASS II which theoretically worked in that way except BR never told you when they had stopped matching your contributions because you had too much money in there in relation to Inland revenue limits on allowable pension amounts.   I think Phil has got it right because if you were BR although you would have been transferred to the NR section of the pension fund something like that would have continued (even if it wasn't being matched  ).

 

 

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

8 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

Wasn't BR pretty efficient by the time it was privatised?

 

 

OfQ was the obvious privatisation model. So that was ditched for a fragmented blame culture mess instead, obviously.

 

[62613]

3 hours ago, KeithHC said:

Ok simplistically is it against what a union is about. A union running a commercial company pay negotiations would be very interesting.

 

Keith

Depends on the organisation structure, surely. I wonder if a mutual body might work

[62613]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Its understandable enough - John Lewes Partnership have been doing much the same thing for a lot longer than 42 years!

 

The problem - as you have alluded to is that unless you live in a communist state such an entity can look like a good 'business opportunity' for others to try and take over and they know humans are at heart a greedy bunch.

 

Just take a look at what happed around three decades ago as the building societies promised account holders wads of cash if they converted to banks

 

Its a fact that any 'collective' business can be progressively undermined if the people at the top (and don't kid yourself EVERY organisation needs a strong management structure to function - just look at the supposed Socialist Utopia that was the Soviet Union) allow themselves to be seduced by the siren calls of capitalism....

Nothing to do with communism. I would submit that what went on in the Soviet Union wasn't communism, any more than that the Nazis were socialists.  Ever heard of The Rochdale Pioneers? Their model was reasonably successful for about 120 years. And not all building societies de - mutualised , of course. The one I had my mortgage with didn't.

 

Edited May 23, 2021 by 62613

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

You've totally missed the point then. If the operator was run as a not-for-profit by a collective of workers (under the overall umbrella of an arms-length company created by a trade union) you'd never, ever have a strike and other key indicators like sickness and staff turnover would be exponentially better. The collective/co-operative could employ its own management team based on their ability and with a genuine financial incentive in the success of the company rather than being on the management-go-round conveyor belt of people who foul up somewhere and then move onto the next company. It was tried with considerable success by some of the privatised bus companies back in the day (the largest was Yorkshire Rider) but their model was to make all the staff shareholders and ultimately they took the bag of silver dangled by a large plc and sold out to them. 

Trouble is that it's all too "non-tory" for the current government to contemplate or for those who have spent the last 42 years living under right  of centre governments to begin to understand.

 

But where does the initial investment come from?  Logically it would come out of union funds - maybe their investment funds - but if it comes from union funds then members have the right to question how it is being spent.    Forget all the key indicators and that sort of thing because whoever goes for these management contracts is going to have to spend money, potentially quite a lot of money, in order to pre-qualify in order to be able to bid for a contract (I'm assuming that the body letting contracts is actually going to run a well founded method of selecting the winning bid and that it will included assessment of the necessary proposed management structure and safety management systems plus accounting and monitoring systems.

 

All of that is in fact why I see some of the murmuring of Benito Shapps as little more than waffled fuelled airy-fairy nonsense. It will cost money in order to pre-qualify and if your bid doesn't win that is money the bidder has lost.   Just as importantly the very cost of bidding means that a bidder will need a return on that investment and to be able to clear it, plus a profit over the term of the contract.  Even if they area 'not for profit' bidder they will still have to cover the cost of, and repay, the debt they incurred simply in order to allow them to bid - for even the simplest stretch of railway that figure will inevitably be a number followed by three noughts if the job is to be done properly.

 

In fact it would be quite a nice little earner for anyone or any small company with the necessary expertise to set itself up as a consultant advising, and perhaps even preparing, organisational stuff for a 'small bidder' such as a 'local community group'  (exactly one sort of bidder Benito himself has suggested). In fact it sounds as if it could well be a nice 'supplemental earner' to our pensions for folk such as myself with the necessary experience and professional competencies and i even know where I can get the necessary professional indemnity insurance.

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, caradoc said:

IIRC for a while the Railway Pension Fund (not sure whether just NR or everyone) had a scheme whereby, up to a limit, an employee's Additional Voluntary Contributions were matched by the employer; Effectively money for nothing ! This scheme, plus the fact that pension contributions are tax-free, were major factors allowing me to retire at 57. 

 

Drifting off topic a little, I did well twice over with BRASS2. When my children went to University there were still things known as 'Grants'. By that time they were no longer just enrol and we pay up, they were stopped at a certain parental income level. When they started the UCAS application process I checked out the limits. At my first calculation my countable income was above the permitted amount but I remembered that the income limit used had your works pension contribution deducted first. At the time we were paying a low amount c5% IIRC so I enrolled in BRASS2 and put my contributions up to the Inland Revenue maximum tax free amount of 17.5%. BR matched the difference between my pension and BRASS2 contributions. This put me under the income limit and they both got grants for three years.

After they left I continued for a while with contributions until I reached the IR limit and BR stopped matching. I busted the ceiling at 56, which meant that I could go with the maximum pension after the percentage for going early and take the maximum tax free lump sum as well which amounted to about my previous two years take-home pay.

[The Stationmaster]

11 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Depends on the organisation structure, surely. I wonder if a mutual body might work

I don't doubt that the right sirt of mutual body could well work.   But that still doesn't remove the costs of bidding for the contract and then managing what you have contracted to manage as well as servicing/clearing the den bt on the initial cost of your bid.  There is a lot of difference between 'not for profit' and 'covering your costs'.

 

26 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

Wasn't BR pretty efficient by the time it was privatised?

 

 

BR was extremely efficient by all sorts of measures even by the 1980s taht efficiency got even better into the 1990s.  although in many respects I didn't like sectorisation (the proper version of 1992) there is no doubt in my mnd that it did allow further efficiencies particularly in cost management and the cost of actually carrying out work.

 

It was quite a culture shock for me in the 1990s coming into close working situations with various of the continental railways and seeing just hiow far they were behind BR in terms of cost efficiency, resource effuiciency, and sheer size of organisation n relation to the tasks to be performed.  And some of their so called 'efficiency' measures and cost controls were even more amazing such as SNCF's idea that any train which did not achieve a 45% load factor was 'inefficient' and had to be taken out of the timetable (overlooking the fact that to do so could actually increase operating costs and certainly didn't save any resources, staff, or money).  Another SNCF quirk was how delighted one dept was because its particular way of doing something 'saved money' although it was completely unaware of how much that 'saving' actually cost because the money to do it was an additional cost paid by another dept.

[Wheatley]

As a TOC employee I've kept out of these threads on this and other forums, and Facebook, because it's often difficult to determine just which side - government or bemused observers - has less of a clue how this is actually going to work. I shall see what happens, as an ex-BR employee who has never switched horses and always waited to be TUPEd I'm very expensive to get rid of and just inside the early retirement bracket, which is some comfort. I will just make three points though:

 

1. Drivers' salaries are always quoted. I'm very happy with what I'm paid but very few people, incuding most managers, are on as much as drivers. I'm an MS2 in old money and currently about £20k behind the top of our driver's pay scale. I wish I was in ASLEF. Manuel doesn't even send me a diary any more. 

 

2. The 400 people quoted as being paid to argue with each other about delays are actually the main drivers in reducing delays, congestion and overcrowding. As well as arguing they are also paid to get the the bottom of why the delays are occurring and fix it. Which is why they get paid more than me and the Station Manager (but probably not as much as drivers). 

 

3. It will be interesting to see what happens when an attempt is made to level up salaries (it's not in the plan but do you really thing they'll leave it alone ?). ASLEF have spent 25 years playing both sides off against the middle and they're very good at it, much better than TOC HR managers.  Hence (1) above. 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Wheatley

[TheSignalEngineer]

26 minutes ago, Wheatley said:

The 400 people quoted as being paid to argue with each other about delays are actually the main drivers in reducing delays, congestion and overcrowding. As well as arguing they are also paid to get the the bottom of why the delays are occurring and fix it. Which is why they get paid more than me and the Station Manager (but probably not as much as drivers). 

Stopping delays happening by being able to recognise the causes early is more efficient and costs less than fighting claims. I was involved in bidding for maintenance contracts in 1999.

When I started working on the delay attribution part of the tender I looked at the map of the area and listed what I thought were the top ten locations for claims against infrastructure faults. I got nine right without visiting the lineside, just 30+ years of dealing with how things work and what could go wrong if you let maintenance slip. As an example on my first follow up site visit I noticed excessive ballast causing problems with a set of points. They had caused hundreds of minutes of delay in the previous year. The whole thing could be avoided with a length of timber and a bag of nails. Tools required shovel, handsaw and hammer. Staff required two men for about one hour.

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

But where does the initial investment come from?  Logically it would come out of union funds - maybe their investment funds - but if it comes from union funds then members have the right to question how it is being spent.    Forget all the key indicators and that sort of thing because whoever goes for these management contracts is going to have to spend money, potentially quite a lot of money, in order to pre-qualify in order to be able to bid for a contract (I'm assuming that the body letting contracts is actually going to run a well founded method of selecting the winning bid and that it will included assessment of the necessary proposed management structure and safety management systems plus accounting and monitoring systems.

 

All of that is in fact why I see some of the murmuring of Benito Shapps as little more than waffled fuelled airy-fairy nonsense. It will cost money in order to pre-qualify and if your bid doesn't win that is money the bidder has lost.   Just as importantly the very cost of bidding means that a bidder will need a return on that investment and to be able to clear it, plus a profit over the term of the contract.  Even if they area 'not for profit' bidder they will still have to cover the cost of, and repay, the debt they incurred simply in order to allow them to bid - for even the simplest stretch of railway that figure will inevitably be a number followed by three noughts if the job is to be done properly.

 

In fact it would be quite a nice little earner for anyone or any small company with the necessary expertise to set itself up as a consultant advising, and perhaps even preparing, organisational stuff for a 'small bidder' such as a 'local community group'  (exactly one sort of bidder Benito himself has suggested). In fact it sounds as if it could well be a nice 'supplemental earner' to our pensions for folk such as myself with the necessary experience and professional competencies and i even know where I can get the necessary professional indemnity insurance.

You are right, the barrier to entry for bidders is too high in that respect, so in many ways it no advance on franchising. The likes of Abellio and DB can afford to lose money on UK rail as their largess or errors are bankrolled by the state back home, much as the piles of profit they stand to make reduce the subsidy back home. It's been a long standing joke that only UK based state owned entities are barred from bidding for UK franchises, and by the same extension they will not be able to bid for concessions.

 

 

[rab]

4 hours ago, fiftyfour fiftyfour said:

You've totally missed the point then. If the operator was run as a not-for-profit by a collective of workers (under the overall umbrella of an arms-length company created by a trade union) you'd never, ever have a strike and other key indicators like sickness and staff turnover would be exponentially better. The collective/co-operative could employ its own management team based on their ability and with a genuine financial incentive in the success of the company rather than being on the management-go-round conveyor belt of people who foul up somewhere and then move onto the next company. It was tried with considerable success by some of the privatised bus companies back in the day (the largest was Yorkshire Rider) but their model was to make all the staff shareholders and ultimately they took the bag of silver dangled by a large plc and sold out to them. 

Trouble is that it's all too "non-tory" for the current government to contemplate or for those who have spent the last 42 years living under right  of centre governments to begin to understand.

 

When will l learn that my warped sense of humour is not suited to social media????