Apologies in advance if this post seems like a rant. However, I started this blog to give me an outlet for my thoughts and feelings which include anger and frustration.
Take this as a warning, this post is regarding the rail strikes which are happening currently in the UK and it is going to be a long one.
Specifically, regarding the media coverage of the strikes since they were announced. For those who may not be aware, my husband works on the railways. He is not a member of the union but I do have some knowledge about why the workers have gone on strike.
I have been doing some research because as I was observing the coverage in the various media outlets it did not match with my understanding or experience with family members working within the industry. In fact, the coverage felt very disingenuous with the information it was sharing.
So here is what I found out during my research and my thoughts regarding the media spin. Where shall I start?
I know, let’s start with the comparisons that are being made regarding pay. The media are holding up the wages of train drivers to show the public how greedy the industry is. How outrageous that these workers who are, effectively, the highest skilled workers within the railway receive such a wage? It’s easy to be a train driver, after all, the only thing you need to know is how to move a lever backwards and forwards, right?
Our survey says…err no…so sorry it’s not on the board. Believe it or not, there are some hoops and requirements that need to be met in order to be a driver. The first of which is to pass a medical, which up until the age of 54 has to be updated every three years. After 54 a driver had to pass a medical annually.
In addition to passing a medical they are also required to pass a psychometric test. This is an intense process with many parts to complete. It is believed that this particular test has a 90% fail rate. The aim of the test is to determine the temperament dealing with stressful situations as well as memory capabilities, co-ordination, accuracy and reaction times. However I have not been able to find a comprehensive breakdown of what is involved. The information provided has been gleamed from talking to my husband.
If you fail a psychometric test you have one opportunity to retake it. If you fail again then the door to that career is closed.
Personally I would not wish to be a driver. I would not be able to cope with the psychological impact of hitting a person with a train which is a risk that drivers face. Last year there were 253 suicides committed on the railways. That’s 253 drivers in a year who have had to deal with that trauma, not to mention the other railway workers that would be affected in different ways.
As an example let’s think about the Station staff manning the ticket offices or the train conductors who have to face angry passengers due to delays caused by such an incident.
Do you know how much a train station worker is paid? According to http://www.nationalcareersservices.gov.uk the pay range for a station worker is £17,500-£27,000 per annum depending on experience. What about a train conductor? According to the above website the pay range is £23,000-£36,000.
These roles are public facing. So when you think of the railways these are the people you think of. There is a large number of staff who work “behind the scenes”. Such as track maintenance workers, rolling stock engineering technicians both of whom dependent on experience can expect a maximum salary of £34,000.
Unfortunately I don’t have access to the figures for any employees such as cleaners or workers who are paid an hourly rate but I think the above figures show that the workers are not as well paid as you would assume, given the profit margins of the railways.
As a result it is inaccurate to use the pay of nurses as a comparable given that, according to the same website I have referenced above, have a starting wage of approximately £25,000 rising to £45,000 depending on specialism and experience.
I am not saying that nurses are paid fairly. Far from it. I think all workers in the public sector deserve a pay rise in line with the cost of living crisis we are facing.
Look no further than our MPs. The only requirement to be an MP is to win the majority of votes in an election and boom…your looking at a potential starting wage of £82,000 and you get to vote to give yourself a pay rise whilst all the minions (apologies, constituents) in your constituency, that you are supposed to represent, choose between whether to pay their energy bill or feed their family.
I can hear the government shouting “there is no money available, we have just dealt with a pandemic and so we can’t do this for the public sector. My pay rise though is entirely justified.” Whatever Boris and co. You continue to treat us like we are all idiots when, in reality, only a true fool is unable to follow his own rules and make numerous breaches.
You may have a point, we were idiots to follow instructions from a Wurzel Gummidge impersonator and to trust that you and your ministers have the publics best interest at heart.
An argument that I have seen presented in comment sections on social media is that railway workers were paid to sit at home. This is untrue. The government acknowledge that not a single worker was furloughed as a result of the £16billion that was provided during the pandemic. This same funding is now being used to demonstrate how unreasonable it is for the workers to strike. Maybe that is a fair point. My counter point is, if that money had not been invested then the railways would have been forced to shut down at that point in time. Therefore the saintly NHS workers, supermarket workers, freight deliveries of goods and food as well as people who were unable to work from home, would have been unable to get there which could have been catastrophic.
The railways needed to remain open for the exact reasons that are now being used against the railway workers. The difference between the pandemic and now is that the government and public were given adequate notice of which days services would be disrupted. The Union advised the public to make alternative arrangements with apologies for the inconvenience and knowledge of when the services would be available again.
I know it’s inconvenient, especially for those who live in London for example, it isn’t like there are any other methods of transport available is there? Isn’t it funny how there is uproar when it is going to affect the big city dwellers.
Anyway, I digress. There have been a few statements made by broadcasters that have made me chuckle in disbelief. I cannot help but question the sources that some hosts are relying on. Today I heard a host on a news program say of the employment terms that “Sundays for rail workers seem to be a protected day” followed by this gem, which has made me wonder what comedian is giving her this tripe, “…if whilst on a break a manager happens to say hello to a worker, the worker can, apparently, restart that break from there…”. To me that is a farcical comment to make especially with no evidence to back it up to prove it. It sounds like water cooler gossip to me. Yet it’s the unions with an ill conceived agenda right?
What about these benefits for rail workers that keep being referenced, please do tell me about that. As far as I am aware the holiday entitlement is the same as every other job in the country, no free rail travel for those not working for a train operating company, they receive a basic pay for a set number of hours and are paid to work overtime, generally at a flat rate. I don’t know the rate but don’t most sectors have arrangements to pay overtime as and when needed? Part of the issue in my opinion, is that in order to remain in the red there is no option but to work overtime. My husband grabs as much overtime as he can every month to make up his wages. Is that not a normal practice with employment?
Maybe the benefits they are referring to is this idea held by the public that workers are sat around doing nothing whenever they are seen, rather than working and fixing issues on the line. Here’s a thought. If you, as a member of the public at a train station, see a group of workers nearby dressed in orange, ask yourself why you are there at that moment. Presumably, you are waiting for the imminent arrival of a train. If those workers are on the track or within a certain distance of the track prior to the imminent arrival of a train, what is going to happen to those workers? What would you prefer? To see them waiting for the train to pass so they can safely do their jobs or for them to be injured or killed as the train passes them by. I suppose that would be ok in your eyes, at least they were doing something rather than standing around waiting for the line to be clear so that it would be safe for them to carry out the repairs and return home to their families.
On the subject of safety, do you know how many workforce fatalities there have been since the beginning of 2020? According to the Office of Rail and Road Rail Safety Statistics 2020-21 there were five workforce fatalities. There were four fatalities noted in the Rail Safety Statistics 2019-2020. So I ask the journalists covering this topic, how many fatalities were there in your workplaces? Did you even bother to carry out any research before you started to vomit your narrative over the general public. I have my doubts.
Another website that I had a look at during my research was the Rail Accident Investigation Branch on the gov.uk website. That made for some interesting reading. So far this year it appears there are investigations in to the death of a train driver, a rail worker who was struck by a train and a near miss incident where two workers were nearly hit by a train. In 2021 there are two near miss investigations, as well as a collision between two road rail vehicles resulting in injuries being sustained by two workers.
I also read the interim report following the investigation of the train collision near Salisbury that occurred in October of 2021. This is particularly interesting given the opinions being voiced that automation is the way forward. It seems that neither the driver’s actions nor the Train Protection and Warning System which had detected that the train was not slowing down adequately could do any more to prevent the collision as the brakes were already fully applied. The reason the brakes were not reducing speed was due to the wheels slipping on a “black deposit”, consisting of crushed leaves, on the rails combined with the likelihood the rails were wet and the collision was unavoidable. I am genuinely interested to know how automation will improve the safety of passengers.
So maybe given the risks involved are the demands really that unreasonable?
Every person who works track side on the railways from engineers, gardeners, maintenance workers, conductors, signaller technicians, train conductors, freight workers all have to pass a test to enable them to obtain a Personal Track Safety certification. They all have to pass random drugs and alcohol tests. They all need to pass a medical every five years.
From my perspective, it is a concern that my husband may be injured or worst while doing his job. All the precautions in the world can be put in place but you can never eliminate the risk in this field of work. All you can hope for is to minimise the risk.
My worries are not eased until I have had a text as the majority of the time my husband is away from home throughout the week. He has to lodge so that he is near to the machines to carry out his job. We understand that but the consolation was the pay to begin with. I mean my husband could potentially get a job closer to home in the private sector, such as working within agriculture and earn a similar wage with the benefit of coming home everyday. On the flip side, the workload varies depending on the seasons. Swings and roundabouts I suppose.
Anyway, I would request that the media do a little more research. It really is not difficult. To make it easier for any journalists out there I have listed below the websites I have used to research these topics.
- http://www.nationalcareersservice.gov.uk
- gov.uk -Rail Accident Investigation Branch section
- dataportal.orr.gov.uk – Rail Statistics
I have also spent some time reviewing the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail but I will share my thoughts about this at a different time. I think I have provided enough points to debate. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts.
Mumma Bear Roars 