London Midland

[Clampy]

Thanks for that Paul.  We normally jump on the train as well. Looks like a taxi job then.

[PaulTheVillan]

London Midland have now sent me another Twitter message saying that Blake St trains will be stopping at Aston to pick up, but this will not be advertised at New St due to safety reasons.

[Chris Smith]

London Midland have now sent me another Twitter message saying that Blake St trains will be stopping at Aston to pick up, but this will not be advertised at New St due to safety reasons.

Does that mean both ways or just from Blake St?

[PaulTheVillan]

Not at clue, that's all they said to me.

I'll get the #7.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

I was listening to something about this on the radio a few days back. I think it was WM.
Unsurprisingly they were struggling to get anybody from London Midland to come on and talk.
Management seems to be totally inept at solving this.
Drivers do their hours as they always have done, there is no compulsory overtime.
If enough drivers dont volunteer for overtime then they simply dont have the trains to run.

Take on sufficient staff to deliver the service !   

[Villa'Zawg]

I was listening to something about this on the radio a few days back. I think it was WM.
Unsurprisingly they were struggling to get anybody from London Midland to come on and talk.
Management seems to be totally inept at solving this.
Drivers do their hours as they always have done, there is no compulsory overtime.
If enough drivers dont volunteer for overtime then they simply dont have the trains to run.

Take on sufficient staff to deliver the service !   

It wouldn't matter how many staff they have, all the drivers are refusing Sundays . I'm not sure what their grievance is.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

I was listening to something about this on the radio a few days back. I think it was WM.
Unsurprisingly they were struggling to get anybody from London Midland to come on and talk.
Management seems to be totally inept at solving this.
Drivers do their hours as they always have done, there is no compulsory overtime.
If enough drivers dont volunteer for overtime then they simply dont have the trains to run.

Take on sufficient staff to deliver the service !   

It wouldn't matter how many staff they have, all the drivers are refusing Sundays . I'm not sure what their grievance is.

Who says they have a grievance as such ? Many probably want to spend sunday with their families. As far as I can gather their contracts dont say they have to work overtime, so many choose not to.

[Villa'Zawg]

I was listening to something about this on the radio a few days back. I think it was WM.
Unsurprisingly they were struggling to get anybody from London Midland to come on and talk.
Management seems to be totally inept at solving this.
Drivers do their hours as they always have done, there is no compulsory overtime.
If enough drivers dont volunteer for overtime then they simply dont have the trains to run.

Take on sufficient staff to deliver the service !   

It wouldn't matter how many staff they have, all the drivers are refusing Sundays . I'm not sure what their grievance is.

Who says they have a grievance as such ? Many probably want to spend sunday with their families. As far as I can gather their contracts dont say they have to work overtime, so many choose not to.

"Train drivers are not obliged to work on Sundays, but enhanced pay rates ensure that we usually have more volunteers each week than we need. However, as almost every driver has refused to work this Sunday, we believe that we are being subjected to organised action related to our ongoing disagreement with ASLEF (the train drivers’ union) regarding overtime and other issues."

[Comrade Blitz]

And I'd bet a month's salary that the Union would never let them hire new drivers on a JD (with T&C) that requires drivers to work on saturday and sunday with time off during the week.

[Chris Smith]

I was listening to something about this on the radio a few days back. I think it was WM.
Unsurprisingly they were struggling to get anybody from London Midland to come on and talk.
Management seems to be totally inept at solving this.
Drivers do their hours as they always have done, there is no compulsory overtime.
If enough drivers dont volunteer for overtime then they simply dont have the trains to run.

Take on sufficient staff to deliver the service !   

It wouldn't matter how many staff they have, all the drivers are refusing Sundays . I'm not sure what their grievance is.

Their grievance is that the company are trying to reduce the agreed overtime rate for Sunday working. In response most drivers have stopped volunteering for it. It's a pain in the arse for me but I don't blame them for doing it.

[cheltenhamlion]

The original row was something along the lines of the old Centro drivers want pay parity with the old Silverlink drivers.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

The problem is that there are very few, if any, volunteers to work next Sunday. The background is this:

•attendance on Sunday is voluntary
•two years ago, to attract more volunteers, LM offered drivers double time to work this day off
•now they have decided to drop this rate.
At no time has the union been consulted about these moves, either the increase or the decrease. The company put both forward without any reference to ASLEF – so it is utterly untrue to suggest that this union is ‘holding anyone to ransom’. On the contrary, ASLEF has never been invited to discuss the issue.

Last year management halved the rate on Sundays and found it had no volunteers. This year it is repeating the operation.

The coming weekend is the first time drivers are expected to work for a lower rate of pay than they have had for the past two years. They have individually decided how to react.

[fredm]

So we have a rail company that is expected to provide a 7 day service with contracts of employment that do not include Sunday working?

You really couldn't make it up could you?

[Dave Cooper please]

So we have a rail company that is expected to provide a 7 day service with contracts of employment that do not include Sunday working?

You really couldn't make it up could you?

Exactly, if they would just introduce some sort of shift working then this wouldn't happen, but then they would have to pay the drivers a shift percentage on top of their basic, which might cost them more than just paying for voluntary overtime.
You can't rely on people to volunteer to drive trains on their days off, that's madness! Is this usual practice across train companies?

[andyaston]

So, does that mean I can't get my normal Aston return from Northfield?