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£49,673 and 43 days leave a year for (not) driving a train...


Wolfie

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.....and then go on strike. And why not?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33459515

The entire London Underground network is out of action as drivers strike over pay and conditions related to the planned introduction of all-night services. But what do drivers do and how much do they earn, asks Justin Parkinson.

A driver's starting salary - which follows about six months of training - is £49,673, according to Transport for London (TfL), which adds that this "doesn't alter depending on length of time in role". They typically work a 36-hour week and get 43 days of leave every year, including bank holidays. Six of the days off are compensation for working 36, rather than 35, hours a week throughout the year.

Shifts begin as early as 04:45 and end as late as 01:30, says Finn Brennan, lead negotiator for Aslef, one of the unions taking part in the strike. The early shifts start with safety checks on trains, he adds.

Drivers earn £49,673 a year
The actual amount of "driving" varies between trains, but duties include platform checks and monitoring safety equipment

Driving duties vary. On some lines, the continued use of older trains means that drivers themselves use a lever known as the "dead man's handle" to move them between stations.

More modern trains, making up the majority of stock, drive and stop themselves, relying on automatic signalling. On these, it's the driver's job to decide when to close the doors and leave stations. He or she can also override the system in case of an emergency, such as a customer falling on the track. All trains are set to move to the modern system by 2020, TfL says.

Drivers also monitor on-board equipment and use the train's public announcement system to inform passengers of delays and the reasons for them.

"It's a responsible job," says Brennan, who worked as a driver on the Northern Line for 23 years. "Over the years stations have become busier and there's more need for trains to pass through more frequently. It can be repetitive having to check platforms before leaving stations, but it's a vital and important role."

The unions argue that introducing all-night services will make the hours worked more unsociable and say the dispute is not about pay. TfL argues the recruitment of 137 extra drivers will "reduce the impact on our existing drivers". It has offered a £2,000 "transitional bonus" for the drivers affected, but the unions say that this will not result in a permanent pay increase for those having to do overnight shifts.

"As promised, drivers are required to drive and/or operate trains, as rostered, in accordance with rules and procedures to the highest standards of safety and customer service," a TfL spokeswoman says.

Trains on the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria are due to start running throughout Friday and Saturday nights from 12 September.

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It is an insulting tactic to offer a one-off bonus as recompense for potentially the rest of your working career having a major change of working pattern.

Then going forward everyone gets paid the same, regardless of whether you are on night shifts or not. That doesn't sound very manageable. Who would want to do night-shifts for no extra pay?

More power to them. Solidarity.

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It is an insulting tactic to offer a one-off bonus as recompense for potentially the rest of your working career having a major change of working pattern.

Then going forward everyone gets paid the same, regardless of whether you are on night shifts or not. That doesn't sound very manageable. Who would want to do night-shifts for no extra pay?

More power to them. Solidarity.

What?. £50k and 43 days jollys for opening and closing doors on a train that drives itself.

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Remember anything over £41k at the moment you pay the higher rate of tax. So the take home pay will be a lot less than £49k. 

 

Ive worked regular  nights for 25 years. We do get extra pay but you miss out on so much time with you family etc.

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Remember anything over £41k at the moment you pay the higher rate of tax. So the take home pay will be a lot less than £49k. 

 

Ive worked regular  nights for 25 years. We do get extra pay but you miss out on so much time with you family etc.

It's a hell of a lot more than a hell of a lot of front line public service staff get for doing a job which contributes to society rather than sitting on your arris and pressing a "Go" button every now & then. My wife gets a lot less than that & she works with abused kids and those with special needs & trying to get them a better life.

I can't believe that people don't think that it's a lot of money and leave for that role?. 

*goes for a lie down*

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Absolutely horrible job I imagine, certainly wouldn't consider doing it myself no matter that it would be more than twice what I currently earn. It's perfectly reasonable for the drivers to be upset with the deal they've been offered in the circumstances and what they currently make is irrelevant to be honest. 

Poorly considered and handled by Underground bosses and they should be taking the majority of the flak for it getting to this stage.

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If you're happy to swap your contracted working hours to working nights without any choice in the matter then you can moan about the strike.

If not, then you effectively agree with the drivers angers.

Not everything's about the money and it's irrelevant here.

If you disagree with the strike, you're basically saying, you're ok for your employer to control your life and take the p*ss out of you for a certain amount of money. 

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What they should do is pay them time and a half for the night shifts, and then let volunteers come forward. But they can't do that, because they already pay them too much. They'd be getting the equivalent of £75,000 a year for those shifts. 

So the problem is that they get paid too much already. They should reduce their wages to the average, £35,000, and keep them online with average, and then offer them time and a half for nights. 

How on earth did the union get so much power in the first place, to get drivers on such favourable terms?

i think unions, like left wing politics in general, have had their day. They've done what they needed to do. We no longer live in a draconian society and certain rights are now the norm, no matter what your political leanings are. Benefits were introduced for good reasons, unions were introduced for good reasons. But the time for them has passed. Now they just take the piss, cod there's nothing worthwhile I fight for now, they just strike over any old ****. 

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It's a hell of a lot more than a hell of a lot of front line public service staff get for doing a job which contributes to society rather than sitting on your arris and pressing a "Go" button every now & then. My wife gets a lot less than that & she works with abused kids and those with special needs & trying to get them a better life.

I can't believe that people don't think that it's a lot of money and leave for that role?. 

*goes for a lie down*

Well I work 5 x 12hr night shifts for nowhere near £49k  and that's 60hrs per. Week and I'm knackered. I've missed so much family time to try and provide them with a decent life. 

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If you're happy to swap your contracted working hours to working nights without any choice in the matter then you can moan about the strike.

If not, then you effectively agree with the drivers angers.

There's a choice. Pocket the dosh & change your hours or leave & get another job where you like the hours.

Not everything's about the money and it's irrelevant here.

Hardly irrelevant when they are incredibly well rewarded for what is hardly a difficult job.

If you disagree with the strike, you're basically saying, you're ok for your employer to control your life and take the p*ss out of you for a certain amount of money. 

You don't think that other people have to agree to change their working hours?. If they don't like it they can leave. Why not?. Oh, yes, the fact they get £50k and 2 months' holidays for basically having to do very little and would never be able to find that sort of cushy job anywhere else.

 

Here is some info on Tube driver pay that I found, just as some explanation on why their pay is stupidly high. My word, not his.


Benjamin Frost, Product Manager for Hay Group PayNet, one of the most widely used sources of ...


Most salary levels are just based on supply and demand economics really.  What makes tube drivers different is the ability of their unions to make the supply of drivers extremely tight (and thus drive up their pay).  They do this in a few ways:
1.  Having lobbied over years for high levels of training for drivers (it takes months of training before a driver is allowed to drive a train on their own), on grounds of safety.  This creates a barrier to entry, meaning that "not just anybody" can drive a tube train, and supply cannot be ramped up quickly or easily.
2.  Successfully having fought for a maximum number of hours a driver needs to work, for adequate rest breaks etc - again argued on safety grounds.  This again restricts the supply of available "man hours" to drive trains.
3.  Getting all of these things agreed under threat of the ultimate "labour supply" negotiating tool: a strike.  They have the ability to shut the whole system down, which gives them bargaining power.

So, creating barriers to entry and restricting the supply of driver man hours, plus the ever present threat of strikes, gives unions significant leverage when they are asking for pay rises for drivers.  After a few decades of this, high pay is the result.

The question also asks why other groups do not have the same result (e.g. nurses, police etc).  Whilst there are also barriers to entry to those jobs (and strong unions in some cases), they are very big groups of people, whose pay has a huge influence on public budgets - e.g. if all teachers suddenly had an extra 0.5% added to their pay, this would cost millions, which means it is resisted strongly.  Tube drivers are a small and specialised enough group that the cost of their pay demands flies more "under the radar" to get approved.
 

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It beggars belief that people are happy to have a rant about what train drivers earn, and then complain that it's because the union have effectively negotiated them a decent deal.

Yet we sit back and watch people in the banking sector earn multiple times what a train driver earns, by simply gambling on our futures. And it certainly wasn't train drivers who caused the global recession

The same people making the criticisms are those who are happy to praise capitalism, and profit-making companies so why would you then have an issue with people capitalising their labour? That's our right

Saying the unions have had their day and are no longer needed is terrifyingly naive

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It's a hell of a lot more than a hell of a lot of front line public service staff get for doing a job which contributes to society rather than sitting on your arris and pressing a "Go" button every now & then. My wife gets a lot less than that & she works with abused kids and those with special needs & trying to get them a better life.

I can't believe that people don't think that it's a lot of money and leave for that role?. 

*goes for a lie down*

the chaos in London now shows how much underground staff contribute to society. 

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Well I work 5 x 12hr night shifts for nowhere near £49k  and that's 60hrs per. Week and I'm knackered. I've missed so much family time to try and provide them with a decent life. 

my dad worked every bit of overtime and weekends going at the loco works in Derby. He did this he tells me to give us two holidays a year.

Trouble is, I hardly saw him, and it effected our relationship in the long term.

Now he's been retired a while and I have kids of my own, it seems strange me seeing him talking them out and having fun with them. I never remember having that as a kid except for the holidays.  Even then he couldn't wind down until about halfway through a holiday and really wasn't used to us being around his feet 24/7.

i guess it's true of many fathers, I know it takes me a while to relax on holiday as I have all the work that im currently doing for customers going around in my head.

its a fine balance, but one I try my best not to take the same route my dad did.  Money sometimes isn't everything in a kids eyes.

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What?. £50k and 43 days jollys for opening and closing doors on a train that drives itself.

It's pretty easy to make any job sound simple when you're not doing it. The simple point is that they have a current standing agreement, and they wish to change it. Your personal feelings on how hard the job is doesn't come into it. If they want drivers to suddenly start doing overnight shifts, then there is going to be the debate about compensating them properly for this change. 

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