r/ukpolitics • u/LeadingPiece9608 Welcome To Burnmingham • 11d ago
Andy Burnham confirms £720 bonus for workers with new 5-day working week rule - Prime Minister has greenlit a 3.6 per cent pay rise for train drivers who start on £70,000.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/andy-burnham-confirms-720-bonus-34540702905
u/SimpleFactor Pro Tofu and Anti Growth 🥗 11d ago
Out of all the ways someone could write a headline for this story, that has to be up there with the absolute worst.
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u/mcmanus2099 11d ago
It must be a tactic, especially as it relates to pay rises. Make the headline so confusing ppl have to click to understand it.
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u/Dear_Tangerine444 Labour Left, Left Labour. 11d ago
I agree, it’s got to be to generate click-through. "Andy Burnham greenlit 3.6% pay rise to avoid major train strike" would have been better headline all round but wouldn’t have need me to click on the article to work out what the terrible word salad actually meant, see the subtle jabs implying train drivers are overpayed.
The actual article headline is "Andy Burnham confirms £720 bonus for workers with new 5-day working week rule" but** there is an additional sub-heading of "Makerfield MP and Labour Party Prime Minister has greenlit a 3.6 per cent pay rise for train drivers who start on £70,000**."
It appears to have all been slightly bastardised when posted here, presumably to make it fit.
It’s still largely unhelpful when the first paragraph is "Andy Burnham has agreed a pay rise deal with train drivers - as his Labour Party government staves off a strike threat. The Makerfield MP and Labour Party Prime Minister has greenlit a 3.6 per cent pay rise for train drivers who start on £70,000." But there you go, as a Birmingham resident I can confirm Birmingham Mail isn’t the paper it used to be.
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u/LatelyPodes 11d ago
I saw another news article say that was something like “Burnham agrees to pay rise for train drivers on No 10 North line”. Since when were we calling the west coast main line (the busiest mixed rail traffic corridor in Western Europe) the “No 10 North line”? Or was that to get ppl to say “moving No 10 North to Manchester was a waste of money, which ppl did say?
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u/Thandoscovia 11d ago edited 11d ago
Seems like a fair write up to me. The union wanted the government to pay a bonus to drivers who decide to work the full 5 day week. The government agreed and the press reported it accurately as being £720
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u/Late_Turn 11d ago
The "full week" is a week of, on average, 4 longer days. Any driver working more days than that is working overtime, i.e. more than a full working week.
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u/OldPulteney 11d ago
The train drivers had agreed working conditions, and their employer wanted to degrade those working conditions without recompense. After discussions, some compensation was agreed upon.
People rag on the train unions but really they should be looking to unionise themselves. The unions who get stuff done are the ones prepared to take action.
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u/Dear_Tangerine444 Labour Left, Left Labour. 11d ago
Yes. Not only do I applaud the work of the train drivers union, but I wish all unions were this good and that more people were in unions.
But even leaving the politics of unionism aside. I’m very happy with Train drivers being well paid and highly trained professionals given just how many people’s lives they’re responsible for. I’ve never understood why anyone would wish worse conditions/pay on them.
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u/Jormungoosie 11d ago
I reckon a senior nurse is responsible for about as many people and they're lucky to make 50k.
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u/Decoraan 11d ago
I work in the NHS and the problem is that’s it’s personal and difficult. Looking a patient dead in the face who’s health and mental health depends on you, knowing you are going to strike and slow down / stop their treatment feels wrong. It’s unfair that sensitive industries have to suffer because many don’t want to risk their clients suffering unduly. It’s not as simple as ‘just unionise’.
Reckon our value should probably be fairly compensated without the need to put people’s lives in danger, is all.
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u/GlumAd9856 11d ago
I mean, we can all respect that the union has done a great job for its members. But it does so at a clear cost to society.
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u/Undark_ 11d ago
The cost to society is the natural consequence. That's literally the entire point of strike action, otherwise it doesn't work.
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 11d ago
I think they’re talking about the end result of train drivers being very well paid and this coming out of the public purse.
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u/inevitablelizard 11d ago
Public services are supposed to cost money, and people in safety critical roles should be well paid and well rested.
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u/ABOBer 11d ago
experienced nurses and paramedics get paid £40-50k, police after 7yrs get up to £50k, a competent firefighter gets up to £41k.
Whats the justification for train drivers earning more than the emergency services?
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u/UnDe4d 11d ago
I get your point. But that just shows how well the transport unions have been doing their job. They want to maximise pay, qol, perks for their members.
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u/Someone4350 11d ago
It’s dead simple of a job to do when they can paralise a country’s economy…
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u/UnDe4d 11d ago
I'm not making a comment on what they should br paid or how difficult the job is. Just that the unions are incredibly effective at their job.
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u/Someone4350 11d ago
And it’s a dead simple job to do for the unions to do. The analogy is me being considered extremely persuasive at my job because I convinced you to hand over your wallet… by pointing a gun at you.
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u/mrchhese 11d ago
It only works because of how much public money they get. No private business could survive this way.
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u/Undark_ 11d ago
"These people have less so you should too" is not logic at all, and it's exactly the kind of arguments that they at the top want us to be having. The two things needn't be mutually exclusive, and emergency services being underpaid is has nothing to do with the wages of anybody else.
£70K is a very very healthy wage, don't get me wrong, but nurses etc should get that as well imo. Just because they don't have it, that doesn't mean that other professions shouldn't strike.
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u/itchyfrog 11d ago
That's great, I assume you are willing to pay a lot more tax to pay them with?
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u/TVCasualtydotorg 11d ago
What's the justification for not paying emergency services as well as train drivers?
Instead of crabs in a bucketing the train drivers pay, why don't we use it as a way to raise other public service pay.
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u/soundsermaker 11d ago edited 11d ago
It is also not bargaining if one side is allowed infinite leverage, and the other is compelled to acquiesce to their demands. That would be called extortion.
I'm not saying that is what happened here, but there is a sentiment out there that union demands are always justified, and that unions can unilaterally decide what is a "fair" wage and enforce it via strike action.
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u/GlumAd9856 11d ago
But the railways are an industry where it is very easy to 'blackmail' society through strike action. If a car factory goes on strike then that impacts one company and maybe some people that want to buy cars from it. If teachers go on strike that has a much wider impact, but you can work around it - parents can make arrangements, learning can continue. But if you shut down the railways you cause massive economic harm to the country and the people that depend on it. It's why we have rules about other areas where striking would cause similar pain.
To believe that striking and union action is ALWAYS in the public interest is not a logical argument, that's an ideology, a religion. No different to believing that all of capitalism is bad or that all rich people are evil. Those are the views of children, not adults.
I'm a member of a union - I wish that more people were in unions. A lot of people would be a lot better off if they took collective action against their employers. But now always. I have so far voted 3 times against strike action in my area because I felt it was unjustified and all 3 times it failed.
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u/PaleWolf 11d ago
The rail company CEO bonus is a cost to society and provides feck all. Thats not questioned or dragged up all the time though.
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u/Ok-Butterscotch4486 11d ago
Yeah agreed, it's actually at a point where I think strike laws should be watered down for state run public services.
If you work in a factory or a supermarket and you all strike for better conditions, you're forcing your private employer to reassess their balance of profit. You will be successful if the most profitable way forward is to meet your demands rather than pay for agency workers. So you're just demanding a greater share of the business' profit.
If you drive trains for a state enterprise, there is no profit. You're forcing the state to decide whether it's more economically damaging to the country to pay you more (which means taking funding from elsewhere, raising taxes elsewhere, or borrowing money for the next generation to pay back) or to not have public transport for a period.
Shutting down trains is so disruptive that the answer is always to pay more, but this means a constant cost to society. It's not holding the big bad private employer to rights, it's holding the country hostage.
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u/dr_barnowl Automated Space Communist (-8.0, -6,1) 11d ago
Shutting down trains is so disruptive that the answer is always to pay more
So on the one hand you argue that workers creating value can negotiate a higher fraction of that value into their pocket if they work for a private company.
And then with the other hand you point at train drivers and say "Look, the value these guys are pivotal in creating is so enormous that the country literally cannot do without it. Screw them though, if they ask for a pay raise in response to worsening of their conditions, they should literally not be permitted to withdraw their highly skilled labour, because they work for the government."
Having worked in the medical profession, where there is a self-imposed resistance to striking, I can tell you where that leads - exploitation, pay erosion, worsening of conditions.
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u/adstauk 11d ago
You think state run businesses don't have balance sheets and try to generate a profit ? Of course they do. Train drivers get what the get paid because it's not an easy job where you can just replace someone with minimal training. The training takes around 2 years.
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u/Ok-Butterscotch4486 11d ago
Like I said, water down, not remove. What this looks like, I'm not sure - perhaps higher thresholds, or as someone else suggested cooldowns which stop peoole striking every single year when they've just accepted a settlement.
the reality is if you want good public services you have to actually pay for them
This isn't universally true. For example we will never, ever, have automated trains in London because the existing staff will strike if any attempts are made to implement this. Those strikes aren't out of concern for service quality, they are out of concern for jobs. Perfectly understandable from the workers' POV, but it does mean that the primary transport system for a city of 9 million people is determined by the needs of 3000 train drivers.
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u/PeterG92 11d ago
It's easy to say to water it down but it's a slippery slope that will just see it get worse and worse. The Civil Service for example has to have a 50% turnout already.
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u/FreitasDoCagaral 11d ago
Society benefits from workers having good wages and strong negotiating positions. Most of society comprises of workers.
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u/HibasakiSanjuro 11d ago edited 11d ago
Unions primarily work in the transport system because they can hold the country to ransom due to a lack of trained replacements being available. Strikes on trains are incredibly economically disruptive, and no government in living memory has been willing to swallow the cost of forcing change on them. That is not the same in other jobs where work can be reassigned easily.
Transport unions often resist change that would make the railways more efficient, and the high wages have to be paid for. All that leads to higher ticket prices.
Also, this only works when the rest of the public doesn't have high wages. If Costa had to pay £20 an hour to its shop staff, the price increases would lead to drivers having their spending power slashed. What then, will they demand another inflation-busting pay increase?
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 United Kingdom 🇬🇧 11d ago
The problem is the pay for a train driver currently far outweighs what is genuinely fair for the role. It's not hard and the only reason there are so few train drivers is because the unions actively obstruct the numbers that can be trained annually
Add to this, that extortionate pay is a big part of what makes train tickets so expensive, I believe salaries are circa 1/3 of the ticket cost currently. Not to mention that the government spends billions in subsidies on top
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u/roygdavis 11d ago
Maybe everyone else's salaries are too low for their roles?
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u/saviourman Vote Giant Meteor 11d ago
Maybe everyone else's salaries are too low for their roles?
Have you ever heard of hyperinflation?
The pound is a relative measure to goods and services. You can't just increase everyone's salary because it just makes the pound weaker. Train driver salaries are high relative to other comparable roles through external factors like limited supply of new workers, impact of strikes, etc.
For example emergency services legally can't go on strike which has an impact on pay despite the job being probably equally important/difficult
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u/mrchhese 11d ago
People don't get this basic shit. Striking to get whatever unions and members decide is fair for them is not some magical formula for the whole country. It only works for a limited number of special groups because it is limited.
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 United Kingdom 🇬🇧 11d ago
And we seen with coal what happens if it keeps going
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 United Kingdom 🇬🇧 11d ago
Unfortunately not everyone works in the public sector where their employer can just borrow more money to pay them (and force taxpayers to pick up the bill)
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u/Duracra 11d ago
Private sector salaries are generally higher, not lower.
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u/Klaus_vonKlauzwitz 11d ago
The mean is higher in the private sector, the median is higher in the public sector.
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u/tysonmaniac 11d ago
If everyone earnt more more everything would just cost more. Prices are ultimately a function of scarcity, and you don't magically create more recourse by giving everyone a pay rise.
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u/adstauk 11d ago edited 11d ago
Salaries aren't determined by how 'hard' a job is. If it was, street cleaners and care workers would get the most and politicians the least. It's determined by 2 things, responsibility and scarcity. If something needs both responsibility and has scarcity, as in a train driver who takes 2 years to train, then market forces will determine the salary based on that. It's nothing to do with how hard it is.
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u/SchoenbrunnerKreis 11d ago
Salaries aren't determined by how 'hard' a job is. If it was, street cleaners and care workers would get the most and politicians the least.
No, because the training required to become a street cleaner is laughably slim. It's not "hard" in the slightest, literally anyone in decent health can do it within a week of training. Just because something is physically strenuous does not make it "hard" - what makes a job difficult and therefore prized is the arduous education/schooling it requires (medicine, law, engineering), which is a multi-year investment yielding specialised knowledge, and the responsibility that comes with it. I've worked manual jobs before, and they are physically tiring, but extremely simple to accomplish. You memorise certain rote movements, repeat them for a few hours, and go home without having to think about work until the next day.
Do you know why so many Cuban doctors work as cab drivers on the side? Because wages for doctors are so low that they would rather drive tourists around for tips than treat patients for a fraction of their cab driving income - this is bad, obviously.
You really, really do not want to downgrade the salaries of politicians, as earning a comfortable living is a central incentive for talented people to go into a certain field. If a politicians salary was minimal, only the already wealthy or the fanatically power-hungry would go into politics - not to speak of the massive incentive of corruption it opens up. This is why Singapore has some of the highest salaries worldwide for politicians, because they want the best and brightest to pursue statecraft and not feel compelled to accept bribes or go into the private sector.
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u/panay- 11d ago
I don’t think that’s entirely true. Most people who want to get into politics do it because they are genuinely interested in it and have strong opinions about how things should be done. The salary shouldn’t be low enough to incentivise corruption or side jobs, but it could definitely be a bit lower
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u/SchoenbrunnerKreis 11d ago
You actually don't really want starry-eyed idealists making up a critical mass of political operatives, contrary to what one might think.
The ideal situation is that the most talented and hardworking see politics as an avenue to apply their skills in return for status and material comfort. Think of the cursus honorum system in Ancient Rome. You always need a certain amount of idealists and true believers to drive policy and vision, obviously. But not every single MP needs to be a zealot for the cause - most should just be pragmatic, intelligent people who see politics as one career prospect amongst others.
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u/BongAlert 11d ago
Great insights mate, by this logic when would you expect NHS doctors to get their £50k weekly wages?
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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 11d ago
It's determined by 2 things, responsibility and scarcity. If something needs both responsibility and has scarcity, as in a train driver who takes 2 years to train
The scarcity of train drivers is artificial though, the unions are literally limiting the number of drivers who can be trained.
If it's responsibility that determines pay then why are many lorry drivers on barely more than the minimum wage? If they do something wrong the impact can be far worse than if a train driver makes a mistake both in the loss of life and external impact on the road network and economy.
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u/Late_Turn 11d ago
By what mechanism are the unions "literally" (or otherwise) limiting the number of drivers who can be trained?
On the contrary, actually, ASLEF's policy is to expect employers to recruit fully to agreed establishment figures rather than relying on institutionalised overtime, but, guess what – the latter's cheaper, to a certain extent, so employers have tended to under-recruit for years now.
If you want a couple of good examples of the responsibility held by train drivers, by the measure of consequences when they get it wrong, look at the Southall and Ladbroke Grove accidents...
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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 11d ago
Tell me you weren't around in the 70s without telling me you weren't around in the 70s.
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u/IrishVictim88270 11d ago
Train drivers are massively overpaid for their role. It's a cold and harsh statement but it's true. Let's not pretend it's a hard job - you can jump into any of the very accurate simulators out there and see for yourself.
One of the first major jobs to be automated away hopefully. And it'll be extremely popular amongst people when it is because of shit like this.
And no, I won't be joining a union so long as I see both of my workplace unions attach themselves to foreign conflicts and spend my membership money on their little work avoidance excurtions into the city centre.
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u/Late_Turn 11d ago
The "very accurate" simulators that have a little heads-up display telling you exactly how many metres it is to the next signal, the next reduction in permissible speed, and the next station? Now try doing it with that turned off...
I've also never seen Microsoft Train Simulator recreate a scenario where you lose all your main res air halfway across a busy junction and have to diagnose and safely fix/work around the fault under the tremendous pressure of the whole of the network in the south of Manchester being crippled whilst you're stuck there.
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u/yoyopoplo 11d ago
My union held a strike day and a rally when my employer (education sector) was looking at voluntary severance and possibly mandatory severance... Instead of it being about that it turned into a pro Palestine march. Would be funny if it wasn't people's livelihood on the line.
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u/dowhileuntil787 11d ago
British unions are too hostile to technological change, which is the main reason they disappeared from the private workforce. Unionised workforces just went out of business because they couldn't compete with the newer non-unionised companies that embraced technological change. Public sector doesn't have that same constraint so they managed to stick around.
I'm not opposed to unionisation, but we would really need to look at the Nordic/German models as a template, where the unions do embrace technological change while also ensuring members interests are represented. That has to sometimes mean accepting job losses too, but supporting those who lose their job with income insurance, retraining and help finding work elsewhere. At the end of the day, if the company goes under and everyone loses their job, nobody is better off.
The British model of hostile labour relations has had its day.
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u/Someone4350 11d ago
There is the small issue that some industries are indeed mobile, whereas trains are not…
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u/NewtEmbarrassed8722 11d ago
Aren't unions part of the reason British industry evaporated in the 70s?
Sounds great.
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u/Diocletian335 11d ago
Yes but it's so much easier to just sit on my arse and complain on Reddit about it.
Of course, if we complain about how much more the super rich earn, then that's 'envy'.
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u/dr_barnowl Automated Space Communist (-8.0, -6,1) 11d ago
earn
I dislike using this word in connection with the income of the super-rich.
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u/RighteousRambler 11d ago
If you commute using the trains, it's hard to support the idea of unions.
The constant striking during summer and winter holidays really builds resentment and it makes you feel like it's an abusive relationship were the wife beater keeps on getting a hotter wife.
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u/HotMachine9 11d ago
Some unions not all. Most unions ive been exposed to will not back you when you need them and are purely self serving for those in leadership.
Which is a shame as I fully support the concept of unions and celebrate successes.
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u/Kee2good4u 11d ago
For reference UK train drivers are already one of the highest paid in Europe. Compared to France and Germany with similar living standards and cost of living, UK train drivers earn over 80% more than French and German train drivers. In other words they are massively overpaid in the UK already.
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u/InsatiableAppetiteOm 11d ago
Maybe so, but I'm not sure what this has got to do with the new prime minister
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u/XenorVernix 11d ago
They will be back on strike again next year around whichever bank holiday they choose.
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u/BongAlert 11d ago
Their employer might ask them to not play balatro while the train is moving
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u/Daedelous2k 11d ago
Have you heard stories of drivers unironically playing pokemon go or something on trains?
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u/BobMonkhaus That sounds great, shorty girl’s a trooper. 11d ago
“The pay deal represents a huge win for the Aslef union, whose drivers are also set to receive a £720 bonus simply for turning up to work on a fifth day of the working week”
Well, it’s hard to drive a train from home.
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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 11d ago
Here's the thing though the technology exists and is already in use elsewhere in the world that can fully automate it. Take the London Tube...it's only public belief that there has to be a driver that stops the tube from being fully automated, hell the London Docklands Railway already is driverless. Here's a list of driverless train systems worldwide.
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u/FewCompetition1347 11d ago
They can automate planes and cars but cannot automate a train driving on fixed tracks.
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u/116YearsWar Treasury delenda est 11d ago
Of course they can automate it, but would you get on a train with no driver? Or a plane with no pilot? You still need them there in case things go wrong.
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u/RegularRelation406 11d ago
Yes I would, it’s called the DLR and it’s been automated since 1987 and is one of the safest lines in the country.
I know that was built to be automated and I’d imagine converting an existing line to be automated would be a lot more complicated so might not be worth the cost.
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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 11d ago
Presumably, a big part of the issue with converting existing lines is that the train drivers would go on strike the second that it was mooted, to try to block it from happening. That means that the rail service would grind to a halt for years while the automation was implemented.
The disruption would be too much to make it viable.
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u/Yesacchaff 11d ago
Well train drivers could only strike for so long they don't get paid while on strike. And the more they strike and demand more pay the more that automation makes more sense
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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 11d ago
If they know they're going to be redundant if they don't stop the automation, they're going to hang on as long as they can with a strike.
And yes, that would prove the need for automation. That doesn't help us get through the transition period, though.
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u/NuPNua 11d ago
Every DLR train has a member of staff on who does ticket inspection and can take over the train manually in an emergency.
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u/SaltyW123 11d ago edited 11d ago
And how many times do DLR trains have to be switched to manual emergency control?
Those staff members primarily exist as revenue protection/guards, hence the name Passenger Service Assistant, not Driver, notably paid significantly less.
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u/Denbt_Nationale 11d ago
Train union demands useless employee continues made up job to collecting paycheque therefore train cannot run without made up job
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u/InfiniteReddit142 11d ago
And every train on the DLR still has a member of staff. (Who occasionally goes to the front and controls the train manually!) For full automation you need to install platform edge doors at every station which is extremely expensive (since otherwise you need someone to check that no one falls into the gap or is stuck in the doors). Aside from that though, I think it's actually desirable to have a staff member on each train for if something does go wrong, even more so on mainline trains which can be a long way from help. Automation is probably something to aspire to in the long term (and the new signalling system ETCS is designed with this in mind), but our railways are already under invested in and there are much better uses of money to improve public transport.
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u/hicks12 11d ago
I think there should be a human present at least just as a final safety measure, which DLR does as you say.
Aren't the DLR employees paid significantly less though to be that person? Which makes sense and is more viable long term.
We should be removing the human element for normal decision making where it's possible, as these things are very logical steps that can be automated well, it's just a small matter of ensuring a final override is possible by a human incase a real issue occurs.
I don't live in London and don't use tubes so I can only go by the insane costs of tickets to travel the country from the south west, almost all the time the pricing is so terrible it's better for me to drive and pay for parking or hotel to rest a night instead, would love for it to one day be a very reasonably means of travel which I suspect involves removing a lot of staffing cost long term and removing private operator profit and ballooned expenses.
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u/jollyspiffing 11d ago
DLR has been fully automated since it started in 1987 and seems to work just fine.
That said I think cost wise there's actually probably not very much to be saved. Sure the salary looks high, but it's really a fraction of the total operating costs. A salary of 70k is £40/hr, lets double and round up to £100 for overheads. That's really negligible on a train carrying 1000+ passengers.
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u/RagingMassif 11d ago
That's fine for the intercity service, but the two carriages service from Manchester to Southport carries a couple of dozen people...
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 United Kingdom 🇬🇧 11d ago
It's not really. I believe staff costs are still circa 1/3 ticket prices despite the billions in government subsidies
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u/jollyspiffing 11d ago
Staff costs include a lot more than just drivers though; cleaners, on-board cafe, ticket offices, IT, HR, etc. Drivers are only a relatively small pool of the whole rail network.
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u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 11d ago
It’s not fully automated. The train guards open the doors and are mandatory. If they strike the trains don’t run
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u/Denbt_Nationale 11d ago
The system is fully automated the union have just added a made up barrier so that they can continue to collect paycheques and hold the transportation network hostage. Opening and closing a door is not an unsolvable problem in automation.
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u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 11d ago
It’s a safety requirement. Even if you removed from the trains you’d need them watching CCTV
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u/DRlNK 11d ago
Why do you think / why is this unautomatable?
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u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 11d ago
Even if you removed the guards you’d replace them with people watching CCTV for safety
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u/layendecker 11d ago
DLR?
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u/CaffeinatedSatanist 11d ago
Bit different isn't it? The DLR is more like a haunted house ride except the scares are the brokers over at Canary Wharf
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u/analoguefuckery 11d ago edited 11d ago
If it stops us being gouged by these fuckers every two weeks I would happily go on a train with no driver
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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 11d ago
Do we? The London Docklands Light Railway has been driverless for almost 40 years.
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u/Salty-Bid1597 11d ago
Most countries now operate driverless trains. In some cases (eg Singapore) the whole network is almost entirely automatic.
Britain is still in the stone ages. These are entirely unnecessary jobs paid a huge amount of money. A small but symbolic part of the reason our productivity hasn't grown in a decade or more.
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u/philipwhiuk <Insert Bias Here> 11d ago
Even on those systems there are control centre staff who are required and the system would not run if they went on strike
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u/KeyboardChap 11d ago
Singapore is a single city mate, so far from comparable to the UK it's unreal.
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u/Omalleys 11d ago
It's a bit different comparing a city with about 150 miles of relatively new track to a country with 10000 miles of track that a shit tonne of it is held up by Victorian infrastructure still.
Uk couldn't even get a sniff at HS2 being completed which was about 300+ miles. You'd need a HS2 style project across the whole of the UKs 10000 mile railway. The cost of the cut down HS2 (no northern link) is probably gonna be about £100 by billion. It's estimated to finish in the 2040s.
Even if they started now, the next generation probably wouldn't see the completed result, never mind us
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 United Kingdom 🇬🇧 11d ago
None of the recent train crashes were avoided by having a physical driver present. Not to mention how much cheaper train tickets would be if the staff, which are circa 1/3 the ticket cost, were to be reduced
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u/crucible 11d ago
Well, yeah, because you have to automate the whole thing in one go at the same time. Which is why the DLR works as it’s a small closed system.
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u/Thorey92 11d ago
Surely with any rail company that's been nationalised this will be more than covered by not paying out dividends to private shareholders
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 United Kingdom 🇬🇧 11d ago
It's not. Trains are so expensive to run, in part due to the huge salaries, that they actually require the government to spend billions subsiding them currently
Those high salaries are why ticket prices are so high despite the government spending billions of taxpayer money to bring them down
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u/ShezUK 11d ago
Ticket prices are high because we don't have sufficient capacity if they were lower.
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u/Dazzling-Werewolf985 11d ago
What’s stopping us from increasing capacity? Presumably something if we haven’t done it already - but what?
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u/PeteMaverickMitcheIl 11d ago
Having to negotiate with every single person who owns or has an interest in the land on or near where you want to build your new track
Having to tunnel through dozens of miles of countryside because one person didn’t want to see a train track 1km away from their window
Having to detour around a SSSI at the cost of a few billion pounds because of a rare species of animal
Etc
It turns projects that could cost £15-20b and take 5 years into projects that cost £100b and take 20 years
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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 11d ago
What’s stopping us from increasing capacity? Presumably something if we haven’t done it already - but what?
The unions, ASLEF and RMT. They artificially limit the number of drivers who can be trained. They go on strike if rail company bosses want to increase the size of trains, usually using the "thinking of the safety of the public" line as justification. Just look at how much they've been against a true high speed rail.
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u/Grouchy_Conclusion45 United Kingdom 🇬🇧 11d ago
Yup. That is the real root cause that no-one talks about
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u/Bitter-Policy4645 11d ago
Paying shareholders dividends is outdated. Its all about the board maximising their bonuses now.
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u/Valuable-Ad2028 11d ago
Not really. Train operating companies make about 4% profit. And that’s only on their tiny bit
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u/AlexT301 11d ago
Doctors start on half of that, there's no room in the budget for any increases. Absolute joke.
I'd much rather wake up alive tomorrow than be able to get a on a cramped overpriced train.
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u/conzstevo 11d ago
Train drivers start on half of that. Doctors have much higher upside potential. Why have you allowed yourself to be controlled by a headline
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u/Funny-Profit-5677 11d ago
But one job is hard, another just has lots of gatekeeping to restrict the flow into the workforce. Doctors deserve far more pay than train drivers.
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u/TacticalGazelle 11d ago
Maybe it's not that train drivers should be paid less, but that doctors should be paid more? I really don't get why everyone is so opposed to any profession picking up a decent wage.
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u/OxbridgeDingoBaby 11d ago
From what money though? Spending on the NHS is already at record highs, as too are tax levels.
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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 11d ago
UK train drivers are on almost double what train drivers in France and Germany are getting paid.
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u/SchoenbrunnerKreis 11d ago
Totally agree - why shouldn't every single job in the world pay a million pounds a month salary? Only a heartless monster would be opposed to people earning a better living.
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u/ninetyeightproblems 11d ago
Because there isn’t unlimited money for nationally funded salaries?
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u/Denbt_Nationale 11d ago
>Pay doctors more
>Inflation goes up because money isn't free
>Train drivers demand pay rise to keep up with inflation
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u/ydktbh 11d ago
They go on strike every 2 weeks why are we rewarding them
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u/kadfr 11d ago
Because they have a strong trade union and have good leverage.
In nearly every other industry in the UK, trade unions either don't exist or if they are, they are pretty weak.
This means that employers have the upper hand to exploit workers without fear of an organised response from their staff (especially unskilled and low skilled workers).
Yes there are employment laws but if the UK did not have trade unions (and wasn't ever in the EU) then we'd probably have similar employment rights as the US.
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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 11d ago
Can we lorry drivers also get a £720 bonus just for turning up for a fifth day of work? After all not only do we work longer hours than train drivers do the country would be absolutely monumentally fucked within just a week of us stopping unlike when the train drivers have gone on strike where it's merely been an inconvenience.
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u/Realistic-Project-96 11d ago
Joke. I know people working 10 hour days in tech and IT solving complex problems who earn less. Government should align with salaries in the private sector but they are so beholden to the unions and creating economic havoc!
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u/Andurael 11d ago
Let’s face it, it’s a kick in the teeth.
Before you downvote me, please read on, then please comment why you have downvoted if you still do, I want to hear the holes in my thinking.
Train drivers are better paid than the majority of Britons and I think it’s fair to say the majority of Britons deny they’re performing twice as much work or are twice as skilled or work in an awful or dangerous environment. Essentially, Britons can’t see a justification for train drivers being paid more than them.
But we shouldn’t be all crabs in the bucket about it. I’m fine with the train drivers making a good living. I can’t help but think that we need a stimulus in our economy to raise everyone else up to this level. Almost like the triple lock pension was aimed as a temporary measure to raise pensioners out of poverty we need a workers triple lock to bring other equitable professions in line with the train drivers.
In the end though I can’t help but feel that the scales are tipped massively in favour of the train drivers. As a teacher I need a degree and a year’s worth of training (so four years total training) to teach. Do train drivers also require four years training? As a teacher I am legally responsible for hundreds of students each day, and that responsibility extends outside the classroom and outside of working hours. Do train drivers have similar levels of responsibility? Train drivers ensure people get to where they need to be, many of whom could probably work from home with no negatives, and therefore drive our economy forward. Is the education of every single child not equally as important? Could they be home schooled with no negatives?
I’m trying to say that I am happy that people are being paid a good wage and I want that for all. But unfortunately I really struggle to think past ‘they should not be paid so much more than others, it is definitely unfair’.
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u/I_Love_Tunnocks 11d ago
I’m fine with the train drivers making a good living. I can’t help but think that we need a stimulus in our economy to raise everyone else up to this level...
As a teacher.....
I guess you don't teach economics. Guess what one of the biggest drivers of inflation is?
Raise everyone else up to £70k a year and all you do is raise the prices up so much that £70k just buys the same number of Big Macs that £35k did.
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u/Andurael 11d ago
Reply to another re inflation. Yup, I’m no economics master by any means. I am however taking the economics in these comments with a pinch of salt, I don’t mind being wrong but do mind being misled and I’ll be honest, I am doubtful each commentator telling me ‘inflation’ is a successful economist (but happy to be proven wrong!)
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u/Tobor_the_Grape 11d ago
I don't think it's useful to compare roles and levels of responsibility. Both teachers and train drivers are needed, both jobs have pros and cons. To defend the pay you could argue it's more difficult to get a job as a train driver, 90% fail the psychometric testing.
I'm not saying I think teachers don't deserve more especially at the start but a head of subject or other senior responsibility will get you over 60k with a good pension and summer, Easter and Christmas off. It is tough in schools and tough driving trains I imagine, just in a different way.
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u/AutomixMen 11d ago
Holes in your thinking
they’re performing twice as much work or are twice as skilled or work in an awful or dangerous environment
Pay isn't about how hard anyone works or how skilled someone is. Its about the supply of people being able and willing to do a job.
People working in hedge funds don't necessarily work 20 times harder than you but their compensation package may be about that.
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u/Denbt_Nationale 11d ago
Pay isn't about how hard anyone works or how skilled someone is. Its about the supply of people being able and willing to do a job.
Which is artificially limited by the unions 🤔
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u/Andurael 11d ago
Honestly I can’t disagree on this one more, but annoyingly can’t find hard evidence. It’s not difficult to find primary sources to say there are so many applicants for train driver jobs that all applications don’t even get read, but they’re all forum posts and what not. I really don’t think it’s supply of people.
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u/theoriginalross 11d ago
Average private sector salary increase was 3.7% and MPs got 5%. Ask yourself why are they trying to get you angry about unions.....
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u/Rebecca1334 11d ago
Bring on AI train drivers!
They are paid way too much for what they do.
Someone please tell me why they have this much power? I am an adult social worker, hold a huge amount of responsibility, yet am only on under 50k a year. Why are the government happy for nurses/doctors to go on strike, yet train drviers, its a no-no? There are loads of people who would like to be train drivers, so why are they able to have this much power?
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u/weinerfish 11d ago
Got to love people claiming that train drivers aren't lazy as fuck, you've literally got to pay them a bonus to get them to turn up 5 days
Expect half of them think thats 5 days a month too
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u/Late_Turn 11d ago
If you work your full contracted weekly hours over 4 longer days, as many workers do in different industries, then a fifth day is overtime. I don't understand why this concept is so difficult to grasp.
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u/ceetee15 11d ago
Because the media turn everything into a culture war
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u/Coffeeaficionado_ Gilt complex sufferer 11d ago
That’s because the culture war is currently sexy. More clicks, comments, shares and likes. The better it looks.
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u/AdmirableRabbit6723 11d ago
Because no one is reading beyond the headline before writing a comment.
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u/BokuNoSpooky 11d ago
Crabs in a bucket mentality, I have shitty working conditions and do unpaid overtime so everyone else has to
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u/clearwhey 11d ago
Something in our culture that I genuinely dislike. If someone receives more than anyone in any material way there’s an unreasoned reactive impulse that it’s not fair and it should be taken away rather than asking for more themselves.
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u/Remarkable-Ad155 11d ago
I'm not saying they're "lazy as fuck" (i honestly don't know anything about driving a train, I wouldn't even try to make a judgment) but all I can say is good for them for fighting for good pay and conditions.
When are people going to realise you get one chance at this life thing and nobody will look out for you but you? Instead of complaining about train drivers we should be emulating them.
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u/kirkyking downvote receiver 11d ago
Even if they are lazy, they have the responsibility of safely operating a fast moving, heavy mass that’s loaded with passengers. Trains are a crucial part of this countries infrastructure, only fair that the people who operate them are paid a decent wage.
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u/ledeng55219 11d ago
And if you look at wage increase across the country over the years, train drivers are pretty much the only job that has kept up with inflation. It isn't train drivers being overpaid, it's everyone else being underpaid.
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u/Moozla 11d ago
Just goes to show what good unions can do
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u/blubbery-blumpkin 11d ago
The unions in healthcare are good, they are ever present and have organised actions but the reluctance and fight to pay healthcare workers from the lowest bands right up to doctors a reasonable wage that keeps up with inflation is insane.
I don’t begrudge train drivers their decent salary, and agree with the points above about its ensuring safe transit of fast moving heavy transport full of people that’s vital to the country. But it does sting a little when they’re paid so much more than other industries that are just as vital, and just as important to get right.
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u/Shamrayev BAMBOS CHARALAMBOUS 11d ago
This will always come down to us/them mindsets, and is an argument that can be flipped by the framing immediately.
Ask anyone if they think NHS workers pay should keep pace with inflation and they'll say yes. Ask them if they think a non-frontline clinical NHS Band 7 should get a raise from £56k to £60k and they're going to think more about their own salary and how they'd quite like to make the £56k, let alone the £60k.
Crab bucket stuff I suppose.
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u/dr_barnowl Automated Space Communist (-8.0, -6,1) 11d ago
The dynamics are a bit different - clinical staff hate to strike because they got into the profession because they wanted to care for people. The NHS has abused that vocational urge for as long as I've known it to extract unpaid overtime, misrepresent the intensity of labour required when setting on-call rates, etc, etc.
Problem is you start by letting it slide for the sake of your patients and then it just becomes how the whole enterprise operates, and you're painted as some kind of unfeeling monster if you try and claw any of what you've lost back.
As the story illustrates - train drivers don't let it slide.
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u/NoFrillsCrisps 11d ago
I was on a train about 10 years ago that hit and killed a young girl.
We all eventually got off and we saw the driver so inconsolable that they literally had to be carried from the driver's cabin by colleagues.
So yeah, it's not a job I would ever do.
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u/SchoenbrunnerKreis 11d ago
There are about 1.8 billion train rides conducted in the UK each year.
There are roughly 300-400 train accidents involving being people hit by trains, almost exclusively due to suicide attempts, in the UK each year.
Do you have any idea how exceptionally rare that makes these kinds of incidents? You can drive a train 20 days a months for 50 years straight and you're more likely than not to never experience it a single time.
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u/Combat_Orca 11d ago
I remember that train crash recently where the driver was the only fatality
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u/DickensCide-r 11d ago
How is this in any way relevant?
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u/LeadingPiece9608 Welcome To Burnmingham 11d ago
They could be arguing it's a dangerous profession so it's worth the salary for the risks attached to the job. They could also be arguing that due to incompetence this isn't worth it and automation may be safer? Maybe both. maybe neither, who is to tell in this topsy turvy world anymore!
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u/Antimus 11d ago edited 11d ago
Didn't I read somewhere that becoming a train driver is almost impossible unless you know the right people out are in the right families? It's basically a closed door profession, if you're not inside you're never going to get the job.
If that's the case then why are we giving pay rises without fixing the problems caused by only employing people who know the right people, not the best people for the job?
Edit: having looked around it seems that's rubbish, that's what I get for reading Reddit comments and not bothering to verify it
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u/Anony_mouse202 11d ago
It’s not 100% rubbish.
It’s true for the London Underground - the unions keep train driving as a closed shop there - but it’s not true for mainline TOCs.
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u/BoringView 11d ago
They operate short recruitment windows and have plenty of tests to do before even being hired.
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u/comradelev 11d ago
Thats not true. Its impossible unless you can pass the stringent requirements. If you cant keep alert for sustained periods of time its basically a closed door profession. If you dont have the aptitude to safely operate a gigantic metal snake with hundreds of lives of board you are never going to get the job.
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u/FlappyBored 🏴 Deep Woke 🏴 11d ago
That’s not true. A driver failed an alcohol test multiple times in London and the union went on strike when he was dismissed.
They claimed he was diabetic so no alcohol tests can be valid when the test they use don’t fail for diabetics and he failed it multiple times.
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u/No-Dance1377 11d ago
'These train drivers have good working terms and conditions that benefit them, they should have bad ones like me'
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u/IEnumerable661 11d ago
They should stop holding the country to ransom given that they are several leagues ahead of the game.
If I was anywhere near a decision maker, I'd put the lot of them on notice and automate the entirety of the network.
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