Had to nip in to a nearby market town earlier and parked in the station car park as it was near where I had to be.
Had a pleasant chat with a railway worker there whilst paying for parking at the ticket office (South Eastern).
We talked about the strike.
I don't know the accuracy of this but he said that:
Three and two years ago they agreed a zero percent pay settlement.
This year, management asked for another zero percent settlement with 2,500 redundancies.
There were many terms and condition changes including, increased night working from 28 to 39 weeks and weekend work from 32 to 39 weeks. For night work they currently get time and a quarter. For weekend work, time and a half. Management want to reduce the rates to time plus ten percent. I haven't checked the figures but he said that's a 15% pay cut on nights and 40% on weekend working.
They also want to fire and re-hire (I have been a victim of this carp) operatives and the new pay rate is £9k a year less than they are currently on.
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