Southern Rail STRIKE details

[Westdene Seagull]

I don't mean any disrepect at all, but it feels to me as if you're looking for reasons to blame the union. Honestly, in this instance for the reasons I've outlined, I don't think you're being very fair.

That's not how it's meant to come across. I think the union are one of four problems in this mess - none of the parties involved in the dispute come out well of it and none appear to really care about the customer. I do struggle to believe that employees need to get a doctors certificate for a single day sick though .... doctors just don't do that and the law allows for 7 days self cert. Now if the unions called a strike over that I'd be fully supportive.

 

[Gazwag]

That's not how it's meant to come across. I think the union are one of four problems in this mess - none of the parties involved in the dispute come out well of it and none appear to really care about the customer. I do struggle to believe that employees need to get a doctors certificate for a single day sick though .... doctors just don't do that and the law allows for 7 days self cert. Now if the unions called a strike over that I'd be fully supportive.

Maybe their contact says they have to provide a certificate to get paid as the first three days of sickness are unpaid by law unless a company agrees otherwise in their contract of employment.

 

[Simster]

and owned by the same parent company, so just why does Southern/GTR get things so wrong?

*sigh*

Because South Eastern is a franchise whereas Southern isn't. From 2015, Southern is a license - all they have to do is provide a bare minimum service in exchange for doing as they're told by the government.

 

[Simster]

That's not how it's meant to come across. I think the union are one of four problems in this mess - none of the parties involved in the dispute come out well of it and none appear to really care about the customer. I do struggle to believe that employees need to get a doctors certificate for a single day sick though .... doctors just don't do that and the law allows for 7 days self cert. Now if the unions called a strike over that I'd be fully supportive.

True, but a) you're concentrating disproportionately on the unions and b) whilst there are four problems, they are not equally responsible, Unless you genuinely believe the RMT union at Southern is more militant than anywhere else?

 

[Arthur]

Shout out to South Eastern who were providing passengers and staff with free ice lollies at Charing Cross yesterday

To be fair to Southern the other week when it was flipping hot I got on a train at Oxted which had busted air con and the platform staff came on offering people A bottle of water.

Granted he only had one but the thought was there.

 

[pearl]

They require a doctors certificate to have sick pay , even for ONE day

and the unions allow that?

 

[Ernest]

Not according to the government website ( and I got it wrong, it's 7 days to self certify )

https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave

For company sick pay they need a doctors certificate for even ONE day

 

[Buzzer]

Please provide ONE shred of evidence that excessive sickness is taking place. Southern have failed to provide any figures and admitted that they are short of staff. "Shortage of train crew" is not evidence.

Figures according to Southern... http://www.southernrailway.com/southern/news/southern-releases-conductor-sickness-figures/

And discussed at the time in this thread...

Sorry, I'm not following your logic. 18000 man days/300 conductors = 60 days worked in a month! Am I missing something?

My calcs would be 300 staff x 20 days worked a month (on the basis that 5 days a week over a month less holidays) = 6000 man days worked Sickness = 1000/6000 = 17%. It sounds about right - if you divide the 1000 days sick amongst the 300 staff that's just 3.33 days each conductor - about 1/6 of their working month.

A sickness rate approaching 20% is abnormally high, I reckon.

 

[beorhthelm]

Because South Eastern value their passengers and staff whereas Southern just see them as an annoyance standing in the way of shareholder profits and director bonuses?

sort of the point i was making, management at Southern seem to be cut from a different cloth, though its odd that the parent allows it to persist. Southern have been as they are for years not just since the recent franchise change. though it was interesting to note in the reports of the parent company recently that Southern dont make any money for the group. South Eastern do make a profit and pay a nice wedge back to the government too.

 

[The Oldman]

New Timetable in 2 years time?
A rail franchise holder under fire over delays and strikes says it is planning a massive shakeup of its timetables.
Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) is launching a public consultation on the plans for trains from the south of England to London, Bedford, Cambridge and Peterborough.
GTR's Southern services have been disrupted in a long-running dispute over the role of conductors.
The RMT union called the timetable plan "spin" to hide the "daily chaos".
GTR said there would be new direct routes between Brighton, Gatwick Airport and Cambridge, and from London Bridge to the Medway Towns.
A spokesman said the changes planned for 2018 would lead to greater reliability.Direct trains between London Victoria and Seaford may no longer run with journey times between Victoria and Eastbourne and direct services between Brighton and Seaford reduced.
Services between Brighton and Eastbourne, and between Brighton and Hastings could be increased, GTR said.
Passengers travelling between Brighton and Ashford International may have change at either Eastbourne or Hastings, adding up to 27 minutes to the journey.
Phil Hutchinson, who is leading the public consultation on the plans, said: "We are proposing a complete redesign of the timetable by looking at which journeys are most important to passengers.
"We are creating more capacity and new cross-London routes with connections to Crossrail."
But Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT union, said: "Passengers don't want to be consulted on how services may improve in almost two years' time.
"They want action now to end the daily chaos to their journeys.
"This can only raise suspicions that the Southern spin machine is at full tilt to obscure the reality of cancelled train services."

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

The reason that a reduced (emergency)timetable is in place is due to southern being 25% down on staff.
This timetable has been in place for 2 months now,must be one hell of an emergency,as I said ,bitter Mail readers not bothering to look beyond the headlines.

I did. I have. I had sympathy with the guards. Now I have NONE.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

[MENTION=1365]Westdene Seagull[/MENTION] & [MENTION=2422]Tony Meolas Loan Spell[/MENTION],

Regardless of the reason behind it, this is all about the current government declaring war on the union by the back door. Southern is not a franchise, it is merely the name of the license the government have given Govia to run the trains. Under the terms, Govia are no longer incentivised to maximise passenger numbers or fare revenue. All they are required to do is attempt to run a bare minimum train service and implement government directives - one of those is to implement DOO.

So the reason I am saying all of that is, as tempting as it is to blame union intransigence for this, I personally can't do it. I am not always impressed with the way the unions go to strike over trivial reasons at the expense of the commuter, but the problem here is that the government are washing their hands of a problem they have created: they have handed over management of industrial relations to Govia, who are proving as incompetent at that as they are of everything else.

I often say to myself "I don't care whose fault it is, just sort it out" - implying Govia and the Unions are of equal blame. But that's not fair - it is the governments doing and in particular I object to the devious way the government have gone about conducting this ideological war. If you want to do that, let the public have some transparency. Say what you like about Thatcher's miners striker, but at least she was up front about her reasons and why her government felt it was war worth winning. This is just pure gutless dishonesty from the government of the day.

Yes I know. However as a punter I'm ****ing sick of it. DOO all round I say so we can finally put this nonsense to bed and have trains leaving stations without "awaiting a member of the train crew".

Let them live in the real world. You like I am at risk of losing my job everyday. Its the real world. Time to live in it.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Please provide ONE shred of evidence that excessive sickness is taking place. Southern have failed to provide any figures and admitted that they are short of staff. "Shortage of train crew" is not evidence.

My own eyes seeing cancelled trains, sitting on some ready to go and the "train is cancelled due to shortage of train crew"

The fact that even today there were cancelled trains from Brighton because of this. Its (cancellations etc) is creeping back up to the levels of two or three months ago.

 

[Norman Baker suck my lozenge]

My own eyes seeing cancelled trains, sitting on some ready to go and the "train is cancelled due to shortage of train crew"

The fact that even today there were cancelled trains from Brighton because of this. Its (cancellations etc) is creeping back up to the levels of two or three months ago.

Perhaps the trains are cancelled not because of sickness but because there is not a staff member full stop,perhaps it not the guard that's absent but the driver,25% down on staff is the problem, not sickness.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Yoda]

Yes I know. However as a punter I'm ****ing sick of it. DOO all round I say so we can finally put this nonsense to bed and have trains leaving stations without "awaiting a member of the train crew".

Let them live in the real world. You like I am at risk of losing my job everyday. Its the real world. Time to live in it.

But as you've already been told, its not guards they are short on. Its DRIVERS. How good is rolling out DOO going to be when there aren't enough drivers to drive the bloody things in the first place?

 

[beorhthelm]

Mick Cash can do one if he thinks we dont want to have a say in future changes to services. most of us a grown ups and can seperate problems today with proposals for 2 years away.
seems they are intending to increase the stops at Falmer to 6 an hour and the changes to Brighton-Ashford service would mean a proper train, not the 2 car diesel we currently have for some of those services. so from a purely football perspective, its looking very positive.

 

[ManOfSussex]

seems they are intending to increase the stops at Falmer to 6 an hour and the changes to Brighton-Ashford service would mean a proper train, not the 2 car diesel we currently have for some of those services. so from a purely football perspective, its looking very positive.

Personally provided those proper trains form part of an increased Hastings to Brighton service and you have to change for Ashford or from Ashford at Hastings, not Eastbourne, I would concur.

 

[beorhthelm]

Personally provided those proper trains form part of an increased Hastings to Brighton service and you have to change for Ashford or from Ashford at Hastings, not Eastbourne, I would concur.

so you might like to give the feedback that you'd perfer the service to go through to Hastings to change, rather than at Eastbourne. its question 52 in the consultation.

 

[ManOfSussex]

so you might like to give the feedback that you'd perfer the service to go through to Hastings to change, rather than at Eastbourne. its question 52 in the consultation.

Done.

 

[Springal]

Proper ding dong on todays VIC to Littlehampton. Driver was getting very narcy over the intercom asking for the conductor to contact him, then 'can any member of staff on board contact me' - then - 'for any member of staff on board the safety box alarm is going off in coach 6/7 if they can go and look'

Driver/Guard relations strained ?