Opinion: Train drivers' pay and impediments to recovery

Outdated working practices remain in train driver pay offer, says our Industry Insider.

ASLEF has recommended that members accept a significant pay rise for train drivers. It includes elements of backdated pay that go back as far as 2019, with an increase of 5% for the period to April 2022, 4.75% from then to April 2024, and a current offer of 4.5% for the period to April 2025.

The new levels of pay are not linked to any change to current terms and conditions of employment. And it is a far bigger pay increase than offered by the Rail Delivery Group on behalf of train operators holding National Rail Contracts, which replaced franchises as a result of the COVID pandemic.

What was offered previously was constrained by the Department for Transport imposing a ceiling that limited the increase to 4% from April 2022, with a further increase of that amount from April 2023.

It was also conditional on reform to a number of existing practices. These included ending the scrutiny of rosters by staff representatives, a shortened period of training by the use of simulators, as well as agreement that competent management staff could drive trains when needed.

Probably the most contentious was a new protocol for Sunday work, which would become part of the working week rather than relying on staff volunteering to work diagrams (albeit at enhanced levels of pay). There was also a wish to introduce part-time and flexible working where this was beneficial to the pattern of traffic.

Staff rejected these offers in ballots which authorised ASLEF to call industrial action that included strikes as well as bans on rest day and overtime working. Strikes and other action by staff at operating companies were called on different days, which resulted in uncertainty about which trains would run on a network-wide basis.

Statisticians working for the Office of Rail and Road have identified a significant financial impact of the industrial action, which has slowed the recovery of rail demand to reach the level recorded prior to the imposition of COVID travel restrictions.

There is little doubt that the subsequent revenue loss has been far greater than the cost of a pay offer to reflect the rise in the cost of living.

The government is right to decouple negotiations about a pay award after a long period of stagnation, but there must be a next phase to address outdated working practices that are having a significant impact on service delivery.

The challenge now is to gain acceptance that there must be change, to restore timetable reliability which is absent on many routes owing to a lack of volunteers for Sunday work and for working rest days and overtime.

There is also evidence of absenteeism when diagrams coincide with unpopular hours of work such as on Fridays or late evenings, when trains shown as operating in journey planners disappear as departure time nears.

Service delivery has yet to recover from the COVID period, when short-notice absence was a fact of life as individuals tested positive for the virus and were unable to take up their rostered shift.

It is now a high-level concern, with an impact on national economic recovery, that a large percentage of the working age population has not come back into the workforce motivated to carry out previous employment patterns.

A new dispute with ASLEF has emerged that has brought new strike action affecting weekend LNER services. This is reported to be a response to management action being taken to ensure the operation of the published timetable by amending rosters and the use of qualified staff other than drivers.

If this dispute cannot be resolved, there will be severe disruption to services operated by LNER during every weekend from the end of August to mid-November.

However justified the new government may feel about restoring pay levels for train drivers and other groups such as junior doctors, a precedent has been created that will inevitably lead to other groups of rail staff seeking similar pay settlements. The RMT has already expressed this for staff it represents, and is seeking agreement for a similar increase.

For a long period following privatisation, pay disputes in the rail industry were a rarity. Increased income from the growth in passenger numbers allowed successful negotiations about pay and greater productivity, which saw rewards for staff increase to levels that previous generation would have thought unimaginable - reaching up to £100,000 per annum for traffic controllers and £70,000pa for train drivers.

Now that rail staff are increasingly employed in the public sector, pay levels will not be determined by the success or otherwise of commercial enterprises, but by the type of public pay policy that has emerged in Scotland, where a standard increase of 2% at the start of the financial year with 1% to follow next year has been imposed.

The response has been a rejection from all four trade unions that represent staff in Scotland, where the timetable has also been cut by 25% as rest day and overtime working is declined.

It is hard to see that such a scenario would have developed prior to the devolved government terminating the ScotRail Abellio contract in April 2022, and the agreement with Serco to run the Caledonian Sleeper services in June 2023.

Advocates of creating an integrated railway with the formation of Great British Railways have not thought much about the implications for industrial relations and negotiations about pay and conditions.

It may be illogical that 12-car Thameslink trains operate on a driver-only basis while newly delivered four-car trains run on other parts of the network with a guard, but these decisions were made by independent employers as a result of local negotiation.

When conceived, the introduction of Driver Only Operation was constrained by the lack of cab secure radio, which BR could not afford to install on routes such as the South Western suburban network.

The current digital radio network has removed this limitation, so it can be expected that GBR will be tasked to implement the default position of there being a single member of operational traincrew.

If it is thought that the recent period of service disruption due to strikes and overtime bans is over, stand by for what is coming as GBR implements productivity measures on a national basis, to reduce working expenses to address the unsustainable financial deficit.