Unions warn of train strike as staff demand pay increase

end of the road

devnull wrote: »

I want station staff to say but only on the condition that they do a lot more than they are at the moment, if they don't want to perform duties other than selling tickets then I can see the management of Irish Rail's point that they can be dispensable because of the fact that ticket machines can do that. If Irish Rail staff want to have job security there should be less of a "it's not my job" attitude and maybe there would be more reason to keep them there.

My local station staff member constantly kept saying his job was to sell tickets, not give customer service advice, travel advice, make announcements, stop fare dodgers or to provide updates to passengers or help people with difficulties to the train. If staff want job security than they need to make themselves work so hard and do so much that the people would be up in arms if they left and had a backlash against Irish Rail but the staff as they are now can be considered excess baggage, so if I was them I'd try and make sure that I was seen as an asset rather than a liability by going the extra mile for their customers, it doesn't happen though.

If you go to some of the smaller stations in the UK and in other European countries a lot of small stations are one man bands, one person checks tickets, provides updates, travel advice, makes announcements, offers customer service, assist people with their luggage if required, proactively helps people on the platform. In Irish Rail someone sits behind a desk near the gates which are often left open even when staffed, twiddles his thumbs on his phone saying anything apart from selling tickets is not his job.

The staff need to become customer ambassadors and customer service staff rather than dedicated ticket sellers if they are to survive.

if the staff are to do more work then they must be obligated to do it as part of their terms of employment when they sign new contracts. if something isn't someone's job then they aren't going to do it, that's fair enough. if they aren't obligated to do something as part of their terms of employment, then that is ultimately the company's fault for not insuring that as part of their terms of employment.
i'd suggest that in the uk staff have to check tickets and so on as part of their terms of employment rather then off their own back.

Infini

devnull wrote: »

My local station staff member constantly kept saying his job was to sell tickets, not give customer service advice, travel advice, make announcements, stop fare dodgers or to provide updates to passengers or help people with difficulties to the train.

To be fair he doesn't have to let them in BUT he doesn't have to chase them either. The reason for that is security issue's as well as the fact that the Travelling Checkers are meant to be out there to get people who do that. As for people with difficulties usually the staff in the smaller stations WILL help people who are struggling or need a ramp if the ask for it that was always the case. Staff will make announcement's as well to some degree if there are none from CTC who usually do them though most of the time.

Hilly Bill

devnull wrote: »

I want station staff to say but only on the condition that they do a lot more than they are at the moment, if they don't want to perform duties other than selling tickets then I can see the management of Irish Rail's point that they can be dispensable because of the fact that ticket machines can do that. If Irish Rail staff want to have job security there should be less of a "it's not my job" attitude and maybe there would be more reason to keep them there.

My local station staff member constantly kept saying his job was to sell tickets, not give customer service advice, travel advice, make announcements, stop fare dodgers or to provide updates to passengers or help people with difficulties to the train. If staff want job security than they need to make themselves work so hard and do so much that the people would be up in arms if they left and had a backlash against Irish Rail but the staff as they are now can be considered excess baggage, so if I was them I'd try and make sure that I was seen as an asset rather than a liability by going the extra mile for their customers, it doesn't happen though.

If you go to some of the smaller stations in the UK and in other European countries a lot of small stations are one man bands, one person checks tickets, provides updates, travel advice, makes announcements, offers customer service, assist people with their luggage if required, proactively helps people on the platform. In Irish Rail someone sits behind a desk near the gates which are often left open even when staffed, twiddles his thumbs on his phone saying anything apart from selling tickets is not his job.

The staff need to become customer ambassadors and customer service staff rather than dedicated ticket sellers if they are to survive.

The reality is that your local station staff could for example welcome you to the station with the morning paper and a cup of fresh coffee, sort out your travel plans, help you onto the train and get you a seat every day all year and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference wether that person gets kept, or transferred or not. It's all down if the station is busy or not and even then it's not a given.

ED E

Hilly Bill wrote: »

The reality is that your local station staff could for example welcome you to the station with the morning paper and a cup of fresh coffee, sort out your travel plans, help you onto the train and get you a seat every day all year and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference wether that person gets kept, or transferred or not. It's all down if the station is busy or not and even then it's not a given.

Not sure how you expect your post to have any credibility when GM has just torn your previous ones to shreds.

Jamie2k9

ED E wrote: »

Not sure how you expect your post to have any credibility when GM has just torn your previous ones to shreds.

To be fair at this stage it's really is down to numbers and staffed stations. There is no point introducing enhanced duties because it would be near impossible to get it done or cost a small fortune.

if the staff are to do more work then they must be obligated to do it as part of their terms of employment when they sign new contracts. if something isn't someone's job then they aren't going to do it, that's fair enough. if they aren't obligated to do something as part of their terms of employment, then that is ultimately the company's fault for not insuring that as part of their terms of employment.
i'd suggest that in the uk staff have to check tickets and so on as part of their terms of employment rather then off their own back.

We all have contracts however most of us go beyond what is stated in our contracts.

Hilly Bill

ED E wrote: »

Not sure how you expect your post to have any credibility when GM has just torn your previous ones to shreds.

Your opinion.

Hilly Bill

GM228 wrote: »

All specialist per way work is undertaken by contractors and generally always has been, it is still overseen by IE per way staff. All non specialised per way work is still in house but contracted hired in plant has always been the case.

OTMs are operated jointly by IE staff and Balfour staff, Balfour are contracted to perform out-road general maintenance and some heavy maintainance also on OTMs, the rest is in house.





No, the booking system is operated by IE, the system was provided by Cubic Transportation Systems (a US company) with IT side of the system provided for by Sqills (a Dutch company). Cubic provide technical support to IE who still actually run the system.





Yes, the company is Capita, however this is (like any contract) simply contracting out someone to handle a part of a business, that is not privatisation, IE still retain control over Capita in relation to how it handles the service.





Again this is like the booking system, IE manage and maintain with Cubic offering technical support where required.

Unless you class shoveling as a specialist job then contractors are doing per way work with per way lads doing lookout for them. This is aside from work in work sites in a possession. Balfours operates all the tampers etc which used to be operated by Irish rail with the per way doing the protection.
It won't be long that it will only the tracks themselves that will be in Irish Rail's ownership and the rest will be tendered off to the lowest bidder with the threat of strikes filling this page again.

GM228

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Unless you class shoveling as a specialist job then contractors are doing per way work with per way lads doing lookout for them. This is aside from work in work sites in a possession. Balfours operates all the tampers etc which used to be operated by Irish rail with the per way doing the protection.
It won't be long that it will only the tracks themselves that will be in Irish Rail's ownership and the rest will be tendered off to the lowest bidder with the threat of strikes filling this page again.

General "shoveling" is not normally done by contractors, contractors do do some shoveling when it is associated with a job they are doing.

IE still have at least two operatives for OTMs, the rest is Balfour staff.

All that aside the point is that contracting out is not the same as privatisation, when you contract out you still retain control of the overall operation, something which is lost upon privatisation - they are not comparable.

Hilly Bill

GM228 wrote: »

General "shoveling" is not normally done by contractors, contractors do do some shoveling when it is associated with a job they are doing.

IE still have at least two operatives for OTMs, the rest is Balfour staff.

All that aside the point is that contracting out is not the same as privatisation, when you contract out you still retain control of the overall operation, something which is lost upon privatisation - they are not comparable.

They don't generally but mcrorys and global rail are doing the donkey work with the per way doing the protection. It used to be just on various projects or various jobs on nights now it's mcrorys assisting the per way and global rail assisting the S&E Point being it could lead to a situation where Irish rail could decide that its better value to retain all the contractors and get rid of core staff. I

end of the road

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

An experienced train driver earns approximately €60,000.

it's an experienced specialist job, so of course they will earn a good wage.

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

Their workload hasn't increased so their pay should only increase with inflation like it does with everyone else.

their workload has increased in the past 8/9 years or so with the removal of staff from most long distance trains. they can look for a raise, just like everyone else does.

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

If they continue to throw the toys out of the pram, then we should give them an ultimatum. Continue working or face dismissal. Those that choose to continue working will be be kept on the payroll, those that strike (which I assume will be the vast majority) will be sacked.

not cost effective and would lead to possibly a couple of years no service for no gain. they are entitled to strike whether you agree with them or not and your suggestion is unworkable. the new staff even with your proposed no strike contract would have other avenues open to cause disruption if it is warrented. so you aren't solving anything and disrupting people long term just to stop 1 day of disruption.

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

We should just suspend the rail service for five or six months and sack all the staff who don't want to work, start from scratch and build a rail network that isn't built on nepotism, greed, incompetence, rudeness towards the customers and laziness.

would possibly take a couple of years, as you won't have all the staff required to run it trained within 6 months, especially with nobody to train them seeing as you will have sacked the trainers as well. even if you didn't sack the trainers, and didn't cut huge corners leading to an unsafe operation, you still wouldn't get it done within 6 months.

Gerrup Outta Dat! wrote: »

Hire all new workers on no strike contracts.

no point, no strike contracts don't work as there are ways around them.

Creative83

€60,000 per year for Irish Rail train drivers.... up to €50,000 for Luas drivers. Good god, truly a Micky mouse state run by unrealistic Union greed

Hilly Bill

Not many drivers on 60k. There are many other grades in Irish Rail apart from drivers. It's not all about drivers.

end of the road

mini_Sapphire wrote: »

€60,000 per year for Irish Rail train drivers.... up to €50,000 for Luas drivers. Good god, truly a Micky mouse state run by unrealistic Union greed

no, just pay rates reflecting the nature of the jobs. train drivers earn good wages generally. the wages quoted are for the drivers at the top scale, the most experienced drivers, of which there are only a few. you want train drivers you have to pay.

XPS_Zero

end of the road wrote: »

if the staff are to do more work then they must be obligated to do it as part of their terms of employment when they sign new contracts. if something isn't someone's job then they aren't going to do it, that's fair enough. if they aren't obligated to do something as part of their terms of employment, then that is ultimately the company's fault for not insuring that as part of their terms of employment.
i'd suggest that in the uk staff have to check tickets and so on as part of their terms of employment rather then off their own back.

yOU KNOW IN real jobs in the real world every little thing you might be asked to do is not LITERALLY listed in your contract?

It's called flexibility.

Hilly Bill wrote: »

The reality is that your local station staff could for example welcome you to the station with the morning paper and a cup of fresh coffee, sort out your travel plans, help you onto the train and get you a seat every day all year and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference wether that person gets kept, or transferred or not. It's all down if the station is busy or not and even then it's not a given.

Did you read his post? He said the public would not stand for it if they were that helpful. I already hear a lot of grumbling from people annoyed that my local station is unstaffed 95% of the time, where they go to work in the AM tagging their leap cards meanwhile Dekko and Tommo sail by in their sparkling white tracksuits without paying a dime, you still have a few old timers stragglers left with the old passes who need paper tickets, people who want a ticket to an intercity destination instead of having to buy again in CC, people who want questions answered when they're confused about where to go

Already that's a major thing, but if they were actually you know...good...at customer service the public would never tolerate them being crapped on they'd support them in industrial action. It's not unions protecting terms and conditions and preventing abuse people hate it's unions protecting sloth, inefficiency and laziness that is why when CIE and the likes of DSP and HSE go on strike nobody supports them because peoples personal experience with those agencies is nearly universally negative, because they've no customer service ethos they don't see themselves as a public service they see the public as an irritation or annoyance they are burdened with dealing with.

Were trying to tell you that if you took up that ethos (widely, I know SOME have it in those agencies though not many) it would HELP you and get you more support. Don't blindly just rely on the fact that as state employees you can never be fired, those days are going to ebb away. You need a base of public support and you won't get it by sayin "sarry luve dats not in me contract".

end of the road

XPS_Zero wrote: »

yOU KNOW IN real jobs in the real world every little thing you might be asked to do is not LITERALLY listed in your contract?

i do yes. because i'm in a real job in the real world. and i don't get obligated to do things that aren't part of my job description.

XPS_Zero wrote: »

It's called flexibility.

no it's called being asked to do things that aren't part of the job. in relation to the topic at hand, i would agree that what devnull suggested should be part of the job of station staff, so the company have to implement that in the contracts.

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Already that's a major thing, but if they were actually you know...good...at customer service the public would never tolerate them being crapped on they'd support them in industrial action. It's not unions protecting terms and conditions and preventing abuse people hate it's unions protecting sloth, inefficiency and laziness that is why when CIE and the likes of DSP and HSE go on strike nobody supports them because peoples personal experience with those agencies is nearly universally negative, because they've no customer service ethos they don't see themselves as a public service they see the public as an irritation or annoyance they are burdened with dealing with.

no it's because they are jealous of the terms conditions and wages. i have had bad experiences over the years with state agencies however if the staff feel they have a genuine greevence then they have a genuine greevence and my support will be on the basis of the information rather then my experiences of the agency. unions protect terms and conditions only, it's up to the company to deal with inefficientsy and lazy staff.

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Were trying to tell you that if you took up that ethos (widely, I know SOME have it in those agencies though not many) it would HELP you and get you more support.

no it wouldn't. it really wouldn't.

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Don't blindly just rely on the fact that as state employees you can never be fired, those days are going to ebb away. You need a base of public support and you won't get it by sayin "sarry luve dats not in me contract".

no no . the luas and plenty of other strikes which have had little public support, have shown us that while a base of public support is nice, it ultimately doesn't help the workers get a good deal.

Cookie_Monster

end of the road wrote: »

i do yes. because i'm in a real job in the real world. and i don't get obligated to do things that aren't part of my job description.

Of course you do. You cannot refuse any reasonable request or requirement by you employer, you JD is not the be all and end all

https://employmentrightsireland.com/tag/employment-contract/
Terms implied by law paragraph

john boye

end of the road wrote: »

no it's because they are jealous of the terms conditions and wages.

I'm struggling to understand how you could actually believe that.

Hilly Bill

XPS_Zero wrote: »

yOU KNOW IN real jobs in the real world every little thing you might be asked to do is not LITERALLY listed in your contract?

It's called flexibility.



Did you read his post? He said the public would not stand for it if they were that helpful. I already hear a lot of grumbling from people annoyed that my local station is unstaffed 95% of the time, where they go to work in the AM tagging their leap cards meanwhile Dekko and Tommo sail by in their sparkling white tracksuits without paying a dime, you still have a few old timers stragglers left with the old passes who need paper tickets, people who want a ticket to an intercity destination instead of having to buy again in CC, people who want questions answered when they're confused about where to go

Already that's a major thing, but if they were actually you know...good...at customer service the public would never tolerate them being crapped on they'd support them in industrial action. It's not unions protecting terms and conditions and preventing abuse people hate it's unions protecting sloth, inefficiency and laziness that is why when CIE and the likes of DSP and HSE go on strike nobody supports them because peoples personal experience with those agencies is nearly universally negative, because they've no customer service ethos they don't see themselves as a public service they see the public as an irritation or annoyance they are burdened with dealing with.

Were trying to tell you that if you took up that ethos (widely, I know SOME have it in those agencies though not many) it would HELP you and get you more support. Don't blindly just rely on the fact that as state employees you can never be fired, those days are going to ebb away. You need a base of public support and you won't get it by sayin "sarry luve dats not in me contract".

Anybody who thinks they can't be fired is an idiot. Public don't care as to what issues you have with the company, they just want to go about their business with the least amount of hassle and they won't be marching down O'connell street for you to keep your job or a pay rise.
Where do you get this not in my contract nonsense from?

Hilly Bill

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Of course you do. You cannot refuse any reasonable request or requirement by you employer, you JD is not the be all and end all

https://employmentrightsireland.com/tag/employment-contract/
Terms implied by law paragraph

Define a reasonable request.

Cookie_Monster

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Define a reasonable request.

provide assistance to customers, make station announcements, keep the station in a tidy presentable manner, be presentable... etc

end of the road

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

provide assistance to customers, make station announcements, keep the station in a tidy presentable manner, be presentable... etc

i agree. so management should insure they are in the terms of employment and enforce those, insure they are done.

suicide_circus

I think some IE staff would and do go above and beyond the literal text of their contracts, you're painting them all as complete tossers.

Hilly Bill

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

provide assistance to customers, make station announcements, keep the station in a tidy presentable manner, be presentable... etc

That should be the norm anyway and as for announcements, they are made from control

Hilly Bill

suicide_circus wrote: »

I think some IE staff would and do go above and beyond the literal text of their contracts, you're painting them all as complete tossers.

To be fair, there are a few tossers working there who shouldn't be working there but most will show a bit of common courtesy and sense when called for.

Working class heroes

Hilly Bill wrote: »

That should be the norm anyway and as for announcements, they are made from control

Not exclusively.

devnull

Working class heroes wrote: »

Not exclusively.

Indeed, there were many occasions where people were waiting on the platform for 15 minutes for a train that was just showing 7 minutes or something on the board for ages and people didn't know whether to stay or go since there was no information on if it was running or just delayed.

I once went up to the guy in the ticket office who said that it is not running and their will be no service for the next couple of hours, I asked him why he didn't make an announcement and he told me that it is "not his job" as he is only there to sell tickets.

GM228

Latest here.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2017/0927/907815-rail-workers-deadline/




*Note to MODs, the title of this thread is misleading and needs to be amended, this pay claim is a general pay claim and not down to "driver demands".

Hilly Bill

Working class heroes wrote: »

Not exclusively.

Not exclusively, it depends on what you need to announce.

Hilly Bill

devnull wrote: »

Indeed, there were many occasions where people were waiting on the platform for 15 minutes for a train that was just showing 7 minutes or something on the board for ages and people didn't know whether to stay or go since there was no information on if it was running or just delayed.

I once went up to the guy in the ticket office who said that it is not running and their will be no service for the next couple of hours, I asked him why he didn't make an announcement and he told me that it is "not his job" as he is only there to sell tickets.

The decent thing to do there would have been to go down and announce in person but I'd say he didn't want to be lynched on the platform.

devnull

Hilly Bill wrote: »

The decent thing to do there would have been to go down and announce in person but I'd say he didn't want to be lynched on the platform.

Doesn't have to be announced in person just let people know, this happened many times, the whole line was closed and no trains were running on a number of occasions and the staff member just watches people walking through the gates to the platform for a train that isn't going to come on either side for a long while and people wait for ages.

I think generally the provision of info in Irish Rail is quite poor, but it's far worse outside the city center stations.