West Coast Franchise Changes

[Stevebr]

The media has been full of reports of the West Coast Franchise reverting to Operator of Last Resort. It might be of interest that the current contract recently appeared on the government web site recently at the publishing.service.gov.uk. Cue much reading of Chapter 9.4.1 (Events of Default and Termination Events)!

 

west-coast-partnership-2023-national-rail-contract.pdf

[4630]

Interesting and perhaps clause 1.6 'Passenger Service Performance' within Chapter 9.4.1, on page 359, perhaps goes someway to explaining the current news story that Avanti is to pay train drivers £600 a shift for overtime, which I note is a time-limited arrangement with ASLEF (until 13th March 2025).  A last ditch attempt to avoid falling foul of the provisions within that clause.

 

I would surmise that Avanti has already been shown the metaphorical 'yellow card' by its minders at the DfT...probably several times.  

[Mol_PMB]

My understanding is that the DfT has no appetite for taking the west coast franchise in-house, regardless of the poor performance and the protestations from the metro mayors.

[andyman7]

39 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

My understanding is that the DfT has no appetite for taking the west coast franchise in-house, regardless of the poor performance and the protestations from the metro mayors.

Indeed, a consequence of Government's continual kicking the can down the road with regard to legislative change means that the capacity to run TOCs via the 'Operator of Last Resort (OLR)' process is pretty much maxed out. The legal basis under which TOCs run right now is the 1993 Railways Act and until that is suitably amended there simply isn't the legal basis to run large parts of the network under public ownership indefinitely.

[John M Upton]

As for offering six hundred sheets for a rest day working, if I took that (wrong TOC for a starter!)  that would put me firmly in then next income bracket and pretty much all of it would in effect go waft past my wallet straight to the taxman so I don't think many will bother.

Edited March 25 by AY Mod

[Pete the Elaner]

3 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

No doubt added to the every increasing 'Let Kier Starmer deal with it' pile that the Government is racking up at an alarming rate...

 

As for offering six hundred sheets for a rest day working, if I took that (wrong TOC for a starter!)  that would put me firmly in then next income bracket and pretty much all of it would in effect go waft past my wallet straight to the taxman so I don't think many will bother.

 

I had a colleague with a similar attitude when we were given a bonus. It was a good one, something like £3k.

Him: "Not worth anything. The taxman will take most of it"

Me: "Er, about 30%, which will still leave us with £2k each. I'll welcome that thank you."

 

The government does seem to be leaving a huge mess for the next one. "Square One" will be a huge improvement over what we have now.

[adb968008]

Ive been stuck in a horrible tax bracket for sometime.

Whilst its punitive, the thing to remember is dont look down , look up.. you eventually get past it.

In the meantime, push what you can to the pension… the % lost ends up in your hands eventually.

Edited March 25 by adb968008

[roythebus1]

I heard this from a chap I work with on the buses, his other job is as a train manager trainer for Avanti. He told me how much Avanti are wasting on training, some £3k a day for taxis taking trainees from the station to their training place in the midlands on trains that aren't yet serviceable. All this goes to show that there IS money to be thrown at these problems especially with an election coming and the government wanting to get rid of the train strikes problem. Good luck to all the workers who actually DO the job who get this sort of money.

Edited March 25 by roythebus1

[ColinK]

£600 extra for working overtime (plus the extra pay for the day) and drivers earning £100k a year isn’t going to generate any sympathy with the public for the current dispute over pay.

 

A lot of people don’t earn £600 a week.

[Wheatley]

59 minutes ago, ColinK said:

A lot of people don’t earn £600 a week.

Neither did drivers before privatisation (and yes I did adjust it for inflation using the BoE calculator). The franchising model has decided the rate of pay for drivers, based largely on it being cheaper for the more profitable TOCs to poach trained drivers from the subsidised ones rather than carry the costs of training their own, and cheaper to pay over-enhanced rates of overtime than carry additional headcount to actually have enough drivers on the books to run the service.  You can't blame ASLEF for that. 

[adb968008]

2 hours ago, Wheatley said:

Neither did drivers before privatisation (and yes I did adjust it for inflation using the BoE calculator). The franchising model has decided the rate of pay for drivers, based largely on it being cheaper for the more profitable TOCs to poach trained drivers from the subsidised ones rather than carry the costs of training their own, and cheaper to pay over-enhanced rates of overtime than carry additional headcount to actually have enough drivers on the books to run the service.  You can't blame ASLEF for that. 

This is just like the real world that the rest of us live in.

 

Linkedin is full of jobs nicking skilled folks from competitors, usually using conditions, rates and incentives to work for them…. Then for the adhoc stuff use contractors or overtime.

 

Rail industry is emerging from its protective bubble, Avanti is just managing costs. In the real world unions dont dictate pay, market conditions do, and looking at the rail industry, given the skills shortages, more like this would up pay faster for employees willing to vote with their feet for the “package” rather than having the union do it for them might see wage inflation accelerate faster, and employers would need to be more competitive in attracting staff…. Since covid much of the UK has enjoyed significant pay rises, especially IT up north.. 40% rises is not unheard of since precovid…

 

take a look at a major recruiters own words…

https://www.michaelpage.co.uk/advice/management-advice/attraction-and-recruitment/great-resignation-whats-really-happening-uk

 

the rail industry has been stuck in a cycle of conflict, which as an outsider I only see the unions and management structure as being the cause of the rail industry missing out on the boom the rest of the UK professional sector has enjoyed.

 

remember the hgv drivers…

https://www.zoomrecruitment.co.uk/lorry-driver-jobs-offering-wages-60000-amid-shortage/

Those guys taking £600 a day, all power to them… thats the route to money, make hay whilst the sun shines.

 

Edited March 25 by adb968008

[adb968008]

4 hours ago, ColinK said:

£600 extra for working overtime (plus the extra pay for the day) and drivers earning £100k a year isn’t going to generate any sympathy with the public for the current dispute over pay.

 

A lot of people don’t earn £600 a week.

If they werent on strike no one would care, or even know.

 

Edited March 25 by adb968008

[ess1uk]

Aren’t they supposed to be running the HS2 trains when they start too?

[njee20]

10 hours ago, John M Upton said:

As for offering six hundred sheets for a rest day working, if I took that (wrong TOC for a starter!)  that would put me firmly in then next income bracket and pretty much all of it would in effect go waft past my wallet straight to the taxman so I don't think many will bother.

Hopefully most of them understand how tax brackets work. You don’t suddenly ratchet into a new tax bracket, you only ever pay tax on the bit over the threshold.

 

Worst place to be is £100k-£123k, where the marginal rate of taxation is 60% (ie for every pound you earn you lose 60% of it). However that doesn’t mean you don’t still take home more on £101k than on £99k. 
 

I’ll have a go driving a Pendolino for £600 a day, tax brackets be damned! 

[Covkid]

4 hours ago, njee20 said:

Hopefully most of them understand how tax brackets work. You don’t suddenly ratchet into a new tax bracket, you only ever pay tax on the bit over the threshold.

 

Worst place to be is £100k-£123k, where the marginal rate of taxation is 60% (ie for every pound you earn you lose 60% of it). However that doesn’t mean you don’t still take home more on £101k than on £99k. 
 

I’ll have a go driving a Pendolino for £600 a day, tax brackets be damned! 

 

The significant point though is - AWC and the DfT are expecting staff to give up their days off to go into work for that six hundred quid  day extra. Soe people don't doing extra work, but some do.  I haven't worked any overtime or rest days for over seven years - mostly because I don't want to, but neither do i need to.  My work life balance is OK at the moment, but i will jobshare in September, so will be doing half of what I do now, and will earn half of what I do now - after 46 years of full time shift work.

 

I am not seeing any mention of this part of the scenario in any comments about the dispute, noting that the extra Hitachi training requirements have been known about by AWC and DfT since before the order was placed  

[jjb1970]

A few years ago when oil and gas companies were floating on seas of £50 notes management was replaced by an idea that the answer to any problem was to throw money at it until it went away. The almost inevitable result was cost inflation, ridiculous corporate fat and an industry divorced from reality. When oil prices collapsed about 9 years ago the correction was brutal, contractors were reducing headcount by two thirds, paying shipyards to defer delivery of drilling units, selling assets valued at hundreds of millions just a few months earlier for tens of millions and many went into liquidation.

 

I can't help seeing a similar culture in rail, with the exception the state is underwriting it all. The problem with that is at some point spending becomes unsustainable even for governments and access to financing and loans (which government is wholly reliant on) needs investors to retain a certain confidence in government ability to pay interest and ultimately the capital. The wcml is just a symptom of a much deeper failure by government and DfT to manage going back over 20 years and desperately avoiding difficult decisions. At some point the pack of cards will collapse and when it does it'll be brutal.

[DY444]

I thought ASLEF's policy was to oppose RDW.  Another example of their principles being expendable when cash is dangled.  See also Thameslink K0 12 car DOO and expansion of Southern DOO.

 

Imo RDW is an anachronism which should have no place on today's railway and it's about time it was consigned to the bin.  A reliable service is more use to the public than a fairy story timetable so run the service for which you have the headcount.  If that service is unacceptable to the public then ask them if they want to pay higher taxes or higher fares to pay for more staff.  Then proceed accordingly.

[ColinK]

Have a day off unpaid while striking, then work your rest day instead and get an extra £600 for it. Totally nuts.

[Oldddudders]

54 minutes ago, DY444 said:

I thought ASLEF's policy was to oppose RDW. 

I thought all unions opposed RDW. Nothing to do with members needing a day off. No RDW means more staff to cover the work. More staff means more union members, means more dues, means a bigger union, means more political muscle.  Unions and politics are forever entwined. 

['CHARD]

18 hours ago, Wheatley said:

The franchising model has decided the rate of pay for drivers, based largely on it being cheaper for the more profitable TOCs to poach trained drivers from the subsidised ones rather than carry the costs of training their own... 

 

The door to the Central Trains staff room, off Birmingham Snow Hill station concourse, sported an improvised, sardonic sign for quite a while in the noughties which read 'Virgin West Coast Training Suite,' for the very reasons you've mentioned.

[roythebus1]

It's always been the way on the railway. Having been a guard on the Underground in the early 1970s they were always short of staff due to seemingly low wages. I asked why we couldn't work overtime to keep the job running and boost earnings. I was told by the union rep that we should get decent wages without the need for overtime and rest day working. In the end I had to leave the job because housing was unaffordable (nothing new there). A year later saw me join BR as a secondman. There were staff shortages as they'd made too many redundant after the end of steam. there was something like a 20 year gap when no new footplate staff were taken on.

 

I left railway employment in 1988 as I was as it turns out one of many who were got rid of because I reported defects and was on the ASLEF branch committee. They were short of drivers then but cut their nose to spite their face. I've found since the advent of the internet that around 100 such "examples" were made at that time.

 

The result was the shortage of drivers we now see, no new secondmen taken on, train people from off the street to do everything. The advent of Eurostar at Waterloo meant that drives there could take a short walk across the concourse and almost double their money working for E* rather than go round the houses working for SWT. That is when real wages started to rise for train drivers. The abolition of the old steam-era PTR agreements were replaced by the free-for-all we see now, private companies nicking each other's staff.

 

Drivers only have decent wages because of the unions negotiating better rates for them. For those outside the industry who are envious of the well paid drivers of today I say "join a union".

 

Train driving can be the most boring job in the world. round the houses looking at chimney pots, station, shut off, brake, stop, ding ding, open up, station, shut off, brake, stop, ding ding...Express work, just as tedious at times, sit watching signals go past at 140 miles an hour all day. An old workmate went on E*, done it for maybe 20 years then transferred to Chiltern Railways at Marylebone, a far cry from the glamour of driving trains across Europe at 200 mph. Why? Because if he wanted to see scenery go by, it was better done at 100mph than 200 mph, at least he could enjoy what he saw at that speed. He retired early on a good pension, like a lot of them, he was fed up with the job and the pressure.

 

['CHARD]

It took me a second or two to figure out that 'he went on E*' wasn't something that D&A testing was invented for!

[roythebus1]

As a bit of an aside, back in 1982 I met a driver in Germany on an exhibition train at the Cologne exhibition. He was a fireman on the steam on DB and had recently been trained on the high speed 101s. I told him I was a driver at Waterloo, and if he visited england it would be good to meet up. Hid did indeed vitis and we've been friends ever since. He is 10 years older than me. Back in those days he was earning about 50% more than me for a 37.5 hour week, no overtime, no rest days, he had a life with time off. I told him I was working 8 hours a day, every rest day, every other Sunday. One day off every other week. Still struggling to make ends meet. His status as "beamte", a civil servant, meant he retired at 55 on a full pension. He's now 82, living in a nice place in the country on the border with Holland, he has a large American G scale railway round his garden. He doesn't have to struggle to make ends meet.

[roythebus1]

4 minutes ago, 'CHARD said:

It took me a second or two to figure out that 'he went on E*' wasn't something that D&A testing was invented for!

Try €*. :)   Like Kylie Minogue, went into a travel agent in Oxford Street and said "I want to book a ticket to Paris". The clerk enquired "Eurostar?" "Yes, I know".

[Oldddudders]

41 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

Drivers only have decent wages because of the unions negotiating better rates for them. For those outside the industry who are envious of the well paid drivers of today I say "join a union".

I'm sure the nation's signallers don't quite see it that way. On 1.4.94 they were all transferred to Railtrack, with a national wage-scale, just as in BR days. Membership of RMT made no difference - the traditional parity or comparability between signallers' and drivers' incomes disappeared from that point on.