UK XI: Please Sir... May I Have Some More?

[Asura]

It's become abundantly clear that the Tories

"Change starts at the top", though - and presently, "the top" are a bunch of self-serving charlatans.

It's easy to want to say "screw the common good, I want mine" when everyone above you seems to be doing that and getting away with that. Not sure the lower classes need to be the ones who shoud really think about whether they should be paid more.

[Neon Ignition]

It's more as a joint approach. Everyone in every class wants to be paid more, that part is the easy bit. It's the lack of thinking going into the sustainability of jobs and systems etc from both ends of the spectrum that's the main undoing. It's one of the reasons why the common Government stance of not even talking to the unions is so dumb, even away from payrates there are other realities that need to be addressed to help prevent further strikes down the line, especially when the cost of the strikes often comes higher than the cost of paying higher salaries. Even if it's as simple as agreeing a single immediate agreed pay rise on the condition that the service is then subject to an independent review whose objective is to create an efficiencies and overhaul strategy with X amount of years. Paying an extra few percent will help those who want a better hourly rate now but it won't help the staff exoduses end or the services eroding into nothing.

Well, that and this country getting over it's ridiculous xenophobia. Immigration is a huge piece of the solution going to waste.

[Lebowski]

I bet Gillian Keegan wished she had kept her mouth closed, the rags are after her today Mirror running a story on how a million pound schools IT contract was given to a firm her husband is a director of paid for out of the schools building fund, so nepotism and missus of budgets in one nice little package, The sun is going after the fact that she signed off on a 35 million revamp to her offices, how do you spend 35 million redecorating an office???

I'm guessing if the heat dosen't die down they will use her as the scapegoat/sacrificial lamb, it makes me think what else don't we know about and why dose it take an MP doing something wrong for the dirt to get dug on them. It feels like if the red tabs wanted to they could do a massive hit piece on all the current governments doggyness, but are waiting on them to individually slip up to unleash the skeletons from the closet to maximize the damage.

[Neon Ignition]

If they're sitting on stuff I imagine it'll blow out the door when the GE campaign starts up.

[Hirst]

Ticket offices are great and I think the government have a bizarre ideological obsession with getting rid of them (but not subsidised on-site bars, evidently). Some months back I had to go to the big smoke for training, every day for a week. Should be easy eh?

Went up to the ticket machine at a bit before 9:30, wasn’t sure if I qualified for an off-peak ticket or not. Doesn’t tell you when it is, it just gives you the choice of ticket. No info whatsoever, it’s apparently some kind of open secret. I tried looking it up on my phone and the websites were very vague about the specifics – some said “generally” 9:00, some said “generally” 9:30, some said 9:30 if it’s a city/large town (but didn’t list exactly which these are) or 9:00 if not. Seemed to completely differ by operator and lacking any clarity. In addition, there’s at least four companies running the route I needed and I was just getting whichever train turned up first. And I didn’t know which was turning up first, because there were some delays.

So I go to the ticket office and explain my predicament, they were completely on the ball about it. The next train was arriving at off-peak time, but it was a delayed service that was originally scheduled for on-peak which meant you need an on-peak ticket for travel and it’s not worth chancing it with that particular company. There was an off-peak service arriving around the same time but they definitively knew this train would be arriving afterwards because the delayed one had passed it and it was going to be the same platform. Whilst the second train was only going to be a couple of minutes late arriving to this station, the small delay to that schedule is likely to make it miss the slot at the destination station and in their experience you’ll probably be waiting about 15-20 minutes extra. None of this information I was privy to and I’m sure if you’re a seasoned train traveller all of this is knowledge you must know somehow by osmosis or something, but I’m not and I don’t.

Every single time after this I went to the ticket office who would figure out the best situation. I can’t remember the specifics but I think I had 2 on-peak and 3 off-peak there, 4 on-peak and 1 off-peak back.

[Protocol Penguin]

This just means we need to pay nurses and care workers more, not pay train drivers less. Typical Beeb 2023 though, trying to "clear up confusion", by going along with the government's strategy of comparing their pay to nurses. I'll fix that for them:

Maybe it’s not that trains drivers are overpaid, but that everyone else is underpaid, and train drivers have managed to counteract the real-terms erosion of wages over the last thirty, forty years.

[Lebowski]

Maybe it’s not that trains drivers are overpaid, but that everyone else is underpaid, and train drivers have managed to counteract the real-terms erosion of wages over the last thirty, forty years.

By having strong unions that have been fighting for the workers.

[Hirst]

I think for some reason society has decided that driving a train isn’t that important or worthwhile enough to deserve adequate renumeration, so I’m going to put it this way. And no I’m not a train driver (I’d fail on colourblindness).

Anyway, it’s a job requiring substantial training and I’ve not checked recently but tended to be something you had to work up to from lower jobs in the industry. When qualified, your actions are directly responsible for the safety of what could be over a thousand train passengers or millions of pounds of freight. If you are found to be negligent in the safe operation of the train, you can and will be held criminally liable, prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. And if the train operator thinks they can blame you for anything to save their skin, they will.

Also – bit of fun this one – you will suffer the emotional impact of unavoidably killing somebody on the tracks (usually suicides or children) on average once every ten years. That’s if you can still continue after the first one, many can’t. Oh and don’t forget the risk of being blinded by somebody throwing a stone through your front window, that happens more than you’d think. And all the abuse you’ll get from the public for just doing your job.

Alternatively, for about the same money, you can be my manager and be responsible for about 6 people, deal with the life-changing effects of watching a Powerpoint presentation and the trauma of having to ask somebody else how to do a formula in Excel. But nobody thinks being paid that much for that little is strange when it’s white-collar work.

[Neon Ignition]

That's the trouble. It summarises why someone should be paid suitably well for the role, but also why there won't be train drivers via automation before too long

[wakka]

EDIT: actually I can't even be arsed I'm too busy today.

[Protocol Penguin]

By having strong unions that have been fighting for the workers.

Plus it’s better for the powers that be for working people to be distracted gnawing at each other’s throats rather than being able to identify the problem as the government and boss class.

[Anpanman]

Frankly I can't blame any staff who choose to put less effort in,

I can, they are being paid to do a job, at work we have restructures every couple of years or so, with an attitude like that you are more than likely out the door.
Last week at my local station had to get a train before 0600 to get to Rugby for a meeting, ticket barriers won't take my ticket whilst four staff (easy to spot in their hi-viz jackets) basically ignore me whilst they play with their phones, after about thirty seconds of waiting I had to basically shout to get their attention, one of whom sauntered over opened the gate turned his back and went over to his mates to carry on playing.
On the way back - this happens often, train stops at Oxford Road, driver gets out. Sat on the train whilst another driver is walking over from Victoria, at a speed it seemed only slightly faster than a sloth with a limp. When he got on the platform he then decides to have a chat with his mates before sparking up the train to get us off, no urgency or focus.
Back at my station, loads of staff at the gates standing around doing basically f-all, there's just one gate in use.

This behaviour isn't just in the now with the disputes it's being going on for the last forty years I've been commuting.
....and it will happen next week when I'm in London, o joy of joys.

They're obsessed with quoting the figures for train drivers, but most rail staff aren't drivers (and drivers aren't the ones who are under threat of being made redundant). The median salary for a doctor is £76300 and I don't see anyone complaining about that.
Look up the figures for ticket office clerks, train guards, conductors, cleaners.

£30k+ for handing out tickets, try getting that working in a pressure job in sales on the high street, hotel work or places like KFC.
Cleaners - if they are employed by the rail companies and not contracted in will have much better conditions than
their counterparts in a non-unionised environment probably including a defined benefit pension scheme.

Maybe it’s not that trains drivers are overpaid, but that everyone else is underpaid, and train drivers have managed to counteract the real-terms erosion of wages over the last thirty, forty years.

By having strong unions that have been fighting for the workers.

The train staff overall have had the benefit of strong unions which is good, but they are overpaid.
It's a fact that unionised industries have better pay, safer working conditions and overall a better package once you factor in pensions and sick pay, however they also have less productivity.

[Dogg Thang]

Pay them less and just watch that service improve.

[Asura]

The train staff overall have had the benefit of strong unions which is good, but they are overpaid.

Anpanman; I know the train services are nigh-on useless, and after my time in Japan I see our train service as an absolute joke. But I really think you're on the wrong side of the fence on this one.

The train services, due to the Tory mismanagement and privatisation, only care about revenue. They're not ran for the public good, and that culture goes from top to bottom. They're build to maximise revenue. That doesn't mean they strive to offer a good service; that's a falsehood the privatisation fans try to sell the public.

Instead, they're about revenue efficiency. They gradually make things cheaper to run, which makes them worse. That applies to buildings, trains, timetables - but also staff training and staff, well, discipline, or, more properly, inspiring staff to actually care. They get worse and worse, but as long as revenue increases, that's better dividends for shareholders. When they start to lose money, they've found the break-even point - the point of maximum tolerable crapness. And that's when they make the most money. Nothing improves much because they don't to disturb that equilibrium.

Change starts at the top. If the trains were ran for the public good, as a public service, as they should be, should've been, and should always be, then their staff would be proud to work for, I dunno, British Rail, the transport backbone of the country. But as it is, they work for some random person who has stashed all their money in the Cayman Islands, and honestly doesn't care if trains arrive at all, as long a they get to keep doing so.

I get that "they're paid to do a job", but I value my workplace's ethics over my work ethic. I'll give a **** when my employer does.

[Lebowski]

Train stops at Oxford Road, driver gets out. Sat on the train whilst another driver is walking over from Victoria, at a speed it seemed only slightly faster than a sloth with a limp. When he got on the platform he then decides to have a chat with his mates before sparking up the train to get us off, no urgency or focus.
Back at my station, loads of staff at the gates standing around doing basically f-all, there's just one gate in use.

This behaviour isn't just in the now with the disputes it's being going on for the last forty years I've been commuting.
....and it will happen next week when I'm in London, o joy of joys.

You don't seem to understand how trains work the driver cant just set off when he feels like it, he has to be cleared to leave the station. If he was a replacement driver or a shift change then he will of known his departure time and when he was cleared to leave by the signals. Him talking to his colleague will of had no bearing on when your train set off and didn't delay you at all.