Southern Trains - The Way Forward?

Quite so

However the fact that 45.9% of members voted to accept is not something to be dismissed lightly. It shows, that contrary to what many the Unions may officially say, DOO is accepted by a large chunk of driver establishment and as such claims that all drivers are opposed to DOO is clearly rubbish.

Put it this way - if the results were closer to a 25% yes / 75% no, then the Union (and critics of the deal like the RMT) would be in a much stronger position. As it is, the narrowness of the victory / defeat margin says that there can't be much fundamentally wrong with the deal and that acceptance of DOO by drivers is much higher than some would have us believe

The other thing that would be interesting t know is the breakdown in results between inner and outer depots. Given DOO has long been established on Southern metro routes, what ASLEF were effectively asking their driver members who work metro services to do during previous industrial action, was to sacrifice their pay and other perks solely for the benefit of their outer colleagues. In other words the Metro drivers were made to suffer even though all the benefits would accrue to the outer area drivers.

One thing is for sure Passengers have long since run out of patience with the Unions actions and further industrial action is only going to make it worse. The longer this dispute goes on, the grater the chance the Government takes the rather draconian measure of passing legislation banning strike action to prevent such things happening again - and such a move would no doubt be very popular by Conservative MPs in the Southern served territory.

c2c have many fewer stations and a single class of train, so statistically there is less chance for there to be issues and any issues that do exist are likely to be less diverse meaning that it will (at least in theory) be easier to fix or work around those issues.

I'm sure that Southern drivers would accept universal DOO if they believed that it was safe, or the company agreed to fix the small number of issues standing in the way of it being safe before it was introduced at those locations. Everything I've read though tells me that there are major issues that could not be fixed simply or quickly, even if the company seemed interested in doing so.

Not after the Brexit process is complete.

The UK Government has made it VERY clear that post Brexit, the final say on ALL legal matters will rest with the UK Supreme court and that the UK Parliament will have supreme authority to do what it likes with regards employment law.

The fact that campaigning for a 'Leave' vote has actually made it far easier for a Conservative Government to screw its members seems to have been ignored, presumably because it shows that things are not quite as one sided as the  rabid socialists in charge of policy would like us to believe.

I also remind you that both Prison officers and Police Officers are specifically banned from striking under current UK laws - so a ban on industrial action already exists regardless of what the ECHR (or other courts may say). Yes you could say that they are 'vital' professions for our safety and security - but what about Doctors or Firefighters? I would have said they are just as important to the safety of the population and its not a massive leep of the imagination to foresee a time when politicians see 'transport' as a 'vital' service too (particularly as such a move would no doubt go down well in the Home Counties, who generally Conservative voting commuters are the ones suffering the most due to the current dispute.

Now I should say I am not in favour of the banning of industrial action, but people need to wake up to the fact that (i) the longer the Southern dispute goes on, (ii) the more disputes the RMT / ASLEF starts across the country and (iii) the impending Brexit which includes the stated desire to make the authority of our domestic courts and the Westminster Parliament the final arbitrator in points of law, the grater the chance that the Conservative Government will seek to put in place draconian measures to cripple the RMTs (and other 'troublesome' unions like the FBU) ability to cause transport chaos through strike action.

If HMG has really said that (and I'd be interested to see chapter and verse) they will find it very hard to deliver.

Brexit, whatever it means, only involves leaving the European Union (which we joined in 1973, and is regulated by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg). There are no plans to leave the quite separate European Convention on Human Rights, which has over 40 members including Russia, which we signed up to in 1951, and is administered by the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg - to secede from that (or simply to ignore its provisions on torture, forced labour, discrimination, the right to a fair trial, and freedom of association, expression, religion, etc) would probably get us drummed out of the United Nations, with economic sanctions to boot.

We are also not leaving UEFA, the European Athletics Championships, Eurovision, Interpol, NATO, the European Space Agency, the European Patent Convention, or (back on topic) the UIC (Union Internationale des Chemins de fer).

No they didn't (Compromise that is)

Based on the documents in the public domain, the RMT merely agreed to 'discuss' station dispatch procedures with ScotRail in future - they did not give a guarantee that they would accept the driver being in total control over the door closure or other station dispatch procedures.

What they did get out of ScotRail was a guarantee that if there was no conductor then the train would be cancelled. End of, no ifs, no buts, no second (RMT affiliated) person on board the train doesn't run. It maintains the RMTs power to bring the service to its knees if they don't like a pay deal, etc. If I were a Guard or an OBS that ability is something I would want to retain at all costs - particularly given the individuals inhabiting the DfT at present.

THAT was what saw the RMT call off the strikes - and the fact they were prepared to discus door control issues with ScotRail shows the truth, because if DOO was so dangerous the RMT should never have agreed to discus handing it over to someone else in the first place.

I don't call that a compromise - I call it ScotRail deciding it wasn't worth getting into a long messy fight (as happened on Southern) and suing for peace mire or less immediately. That is not particularly surprising - what with the electrification programme running late and various other problems going on, the last thing the ScotRail franchise owners want is a long drawn out dispute, particularly as they would not have received anything like the amount of financial support / compensation Southern got from the DfT due to the latter being 'management contract setup rather than a proper franchise.

On the Southern network, the DfT want to be able to run a train in pure DOO (with just a driver) in 'unforeseen circumstances'. In other words no second (RMT affiliated) person on board, then the train still runs. This immediately threatens the power of the RMT to cause massive disruption in the long term. Yes Southern says that at present, industrial action by the OBS grade won't count as 'unforeseen circumstances' and that they would cancel the service in such a situation, but the management contract hasn't got long to run and the RMT (with considerable justification) are very suspicious of what the next franchise winner / DfTmight do.

A true compromise involves the RMT agreeing that given the right technical mitigation, and subject to a rigorous service specific risk assessment, DOO is in principle safe can occasionally be used.
A true compromise involves Southern / the DfT agreeing that in principle an OBS should always be rostered and sufficient staff will be employed for that purpose, including taking account of holiday, sickness and training needs.
A true compromise does not deal in absolutes.

I don't think that's what was being said, merely that the mandatory presence of such staff equates to an effective guarantee of RMT members on all trains.

I suppose another issue with ScotRail is that the contract is awarded by Transport Scotland not the DfT. Since Abellio began operating services in April 2015 complaints about their performance have been growing, a long running dispute with RMT would have added to the problem and it seems the SNP government were eager to avoid further passenger discontent. Compare and contrast with Southern, the DfT and the Tories (not wishing to get too political but.....)

Votes are back again, and it seems the members have gone against the union leaders again.

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/03/train-drivers-union-rejects-deal-to-end-southern-rail-dispute

I'm not for or against, but the figures look very Brexit-like to me.

I wonder if the mainstream press will respect the vote in the same way as they respected the decision in June 2016 ?

[Admin Hat On]I ask only and I am not seeking replies/opinions that could/will get out of control[/Admin Hat Off]

Sounds painful !!!

Somehow I imagine the drivers at Brighton that operate the West and East Coastway with 3-car Class 313s aren't as bothered by DOO as much as some Metro drivers at Selhurst who might be required to operate a 12-car train rather than an 8-car train with the same rubbish  CCTV.

As for RMT their "NEVER" position is totally understandable, once you make the second member of staff an option rather than a requirement then it won't be long before the second member of staff is removed entirely and there are no RMT members on the train crew.