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Hire enough people so that NO OVERTIME is necessary. Then you'll really hear these guys scream!

- Trunk, US

the company is to blame for not having a rolling week i.e.2s days on 1 day off 3days on 2days off so on and so on that covers every day, but the drivers have to have a good wage.

- Brian Freeth, mielan france

alex in st albans you are an ill informed buffoon and by the level of your comment and argument there , probably an fcc manager as well

- The Insider, bedfordshire

Nice posting, Rail Staff Not Fcc, East of England. And o so right and just.

- Kev, London-UK

"Rail worker,

good to see your usual delusional wonk views continue to miss the point.

their normal hours are an abomination. what is it 3 days or 4 that they are expected to work? that is not a proper working week, which is why they get and deserve no sympathy."

The Frivolous Scotty has returned!

Scotty, what is your problem? Do you feel inferior or something?






1/ Drivers' are all doing their 4 1/2 days 35 hour week....FACT!

2/ Seeing as they are all doing their hours, they are hardly striking.....FACT!

3/ First Capital Connect have an inadequate workforce otherwise these issues would not be happening....FACT!

4/ NO business should be expecting their employees to work overtime to cover up for the large number of vacancies they have.......FACT!

Remember scotty, respect has two sides!

I do not intend to reply to any further comment you send. You seem incapable of constructing a valid point without resorting to ignorance!

- Rail Worker, London

People who slate the drivers need to pull their heads out of their backsides. Driving a train instantly puts you in charge of hundreds of tons of metal travelling at speeds of up to 100mph and in some places more that can take up to a mile to stop. Then there is the responsibility of sometimes hundreds of passengers too. FCC drivers do not have the support of a guard if something goes wrong and will have to deal with safety duties, possibly away from the train, as well as customer service etc. It is mentally draining having to concentrate constantly for hours at a time and living with the stresses that their employers will persecute the drivers for minor mistakes, let alone catastrophic ones! Your lives, as commuters, are in their hands; get a life, stop moaning and show some support! If you are really that bothered get into your cars and pay congestion charges and central London parking fees!

WHY should any company have to rely on staff to work over their contractual hours; especially when fatigue can have catastrophic effects on the safe passage of the train!? If you people understood anything about the role of the drivers you might just have a bit more respect!

Reminder to those who mentioned it...FCC drivers are NOT on strike they are merely exercising their right to take their days off when they are entitled to!

- Rail Staff Not Fcc, East of England

excerpt from latest statement from fcc , the other 500 lines are just waffle but they need to be asked where these 2 drivers due in spring are , i think they maybe being crafty as i am reliably informed that they will not be for the thameslink route and are most probably for the gn route if indeed they exist at all

Why don’t you just employ more drivers?

We are recruiting more drivers. We have already taken on 38 more to facilitate the new Thameslink route timetable introduced earlier this year and we will have 20 more passing out in spring next year. The whole training programme takes a year to complete, and there are no short cuts

- The Insider, bedfordshire

I, for one, am concerned that FCC is totally dependent on their drivers working extra shifts. I do not want train drivers working more than 35 hours a week. Why? For safety reasons. Do we really want drivers on 12 hour shifts day after day with the promise of extra cash? Being a train driver is a skilled and responsible job and I would expect a driver to be alert at all times.

FCC Management are behaving irresponsibly with a buisness model where they do not have enough drivers to cover their normal timetable and are putting the safety of their passengers at risk.

FCC should be stripped off their franchise.

- Mars Bonfire, Brockley, London

It just proves how hard and long hours the drivers do if 60% of Trains are canceled because they wont work over time.no body is duty bound to work over time.And further to this it proves how conscientious and hard working the drivers and rail workers have worked in the past to keep this country's railway in operation.Rather than the public castigating them for there refusal to work over time,we should be rewarding them for all there past efforts and hard work,and they should be rewarded with a huge pay rise,and that pay rise should be funded in part by reducing the managements wages and bonuses as punishment for there lazy attitude and total lack of commitment to the railways and the traveling public.Jo public please back the hard working rail workers who for the most part have total commitment to the railways.

- Kev, London-UK

Train drivers will do anything for a day off. None of them know what it is to do a hard day's work. Lay them off and give their jobs to the monkeys at the zoo.

- Alex, St Albans, England

My guess is that if First Group paid time + 3/4 during the week and double time at the week ends for drivers to come in and work trains on their free days, then they would be falling over themselves to do so.
It has only to be a temporary measure until new drivers can be recruited.
How did the old franchise manage to run a service with the same number of drivers..?
Then there is the lack of serviceable trains too...Mabye the company have also managed to upset the fitters.

- Mark H, London England

Scotty, London:
"...is it 3 days or 4 that they are expected to work? that is not a proper working week..."
I think you will find that this is an average working week based over several weeks. This coupled with minimum and maximum shifts of varying hours, will probably find drivers working anything up to 6 or 7 days at times. The time off is then used to change the shift pattern.
Under BR the conditions were national. Privatisation has fragmented that and brought better conditions..{more time off}..and pay. This is because Train Operating Companies don't want to lose the drivers, that they have paid to be trained, to another company who pays better or offers less working hours, or a combination of both.

- Rodders, Feltham SWTLand

as part of their campaign to discredit the drivers they are now canceling more services than they need to do to make it look worse , i mean if they have to cancel 50% of services because a few drivers wll not volunteer to work on a rest day then who do you think is to blame? They have deliberately kept this situation quiet for months as they messed up their training programme earlier this year , they also failed to employ enough new staff for new routes and rolling stock and < get this > they took vast sums of money to help pay for the training but used the volunteer drivers to run their service when it was designed and set up to cover driver training. They keep saying they think 0% pay deal for 2009 < back dated ha ha ha > is a good offer. well yes in an ailing industry hit by resession maybe , but for a firm that is posting record profits , record dividends to share holders and has been given £150million in subsidies by the government and who have also taken much good will from their drivers , it is only fair that they are rewarded for their part in keeping their service running up to this point. these firms cannot have it all their own way!!

- The Insider, borehamwood

Just pay them more. The rail companies have made huge profits over the last few years, why not give some back to its front-line workers?

- Ak, Haringey, London

The 50% reduction in service was down to the company deciding to run an emergency timetable, leaving many of the rostered drivers sitting in the station with no train to drive! Time FCC were relieved of the franchise.

- Commuter, Home counties

Dez, lets just say your analytical insight is not overwhelming.

1. 35 hours a week is a doddle. I work considerably harder than that, and rightly am paid a great deal more. that's what honest people do, they work harder when they want more money, not whinge and moan like spoilt brats.

2. they are not striking for more workers, they want more money for their 35 hour, 3/4 day week.

so what we are left with is a bunch of no-hoper apologists, and a group of workshy drivers who want more money for no other reason than "I want" and are prepared to disrupt decent, honest, hardworking folk trying to get this country back on its feet.

hell I'd be too ashamed to even say I worked a 35 hour week, let alone labour the point.

- Scotty, London

Totally and utterly the managements fault.
I wouldn't let them run a cake stall at a Brownies jumble sale.

- Anthony, Esher, Surrey

As a long-suffering FCC commuter, it is high time to get tough on these bullying, blackmailing unions. When they strike or 'work-to-rule', it is passengers just trying to get to work who suffer, not the FCC management.

If their absurd pay demands are met, it would be - again - the passengers who suffer through the higher fares that would be needed to meet the increased costs.

These train drivers are abusing the railway's monopoly in providing a vital public service for their own personal gain.

All public services (including tube/bus/train drivers and postmen) should be subject to independent binding arbitration on pay/conditions and an absolute ban on industrial action.

If these train drivers think that £50k pa is not enough, then they can try and find a better job. If they do not turn up for work, they should be fired.

FCC 'management' (and I use that in term in the loosest sense) should also get their act together and recruit more drivers ASAP so that they are not held to ransom by these lazy, greedy drivers.

- Angry Passenger, London

Scotty, i think you are the one who keeps missing the point here.The fact is they(drivers) are rostered to work 35hrs a week and anything over that is overtime, it is as simple as that,surely you should be venting your anger at the management of F.C.C for not having enough drivers to do the job.

- Dez, London

Exceptionally bad business management lies at the root of the problem here. The managers have committed to provide a specific service when they bought the franchise. As always with new managers they think they can take the shor-termest view cut expenses to the bone and increase revenues to pay shareholders a little more and give themselves bonuses.

Making such a commitment does not mean that they entirely rely on labour that is not contracted to provide the service that they have committed to. In other words when you provide a service you ensure that you have the means to do so reliably and not rely upon the permanent goodwill of others.

Goodwill in the form of overtime and rest day working is acceptable to get a business out of short term problems with a definite end. This is a business that has been built on a poorly constructed business plan. The owners deserve to loose the their franchise, without compensation.

- James, City of London

Spatel, I am sure when they recruit new drivers to cover the shortage then the existing drivers will go on strike to say their job is being taken away from them!

- Artfuldodger128, London

As a user of this 'service', it is also noteworthy that not just are 50% of trains being cancelled, but a significant portion of those remaining are also being formed of four carriages rather than eight. This has happened twice to me in the last 24hrs.

FCC's drivers announce this is due to a lack of serviceable rolling stock, which flies in the face of credibility when only 50% of the service is running and the sidings are full of FCC trains.

With the dubious "delay repay" scheme, FCC may actually be making money out of this dispute (paying no overtime, using less than half of the train fleet, power costs etc) while pocketing fares of the season ticket holders - its the customer who is suffering here and FCC have a monopoly on services to Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

I hope FCC do recruit another 100 or whatever drivers and then restrict overtime. But it defies logic why union members want to cut their total earnings by 15-25% for presumably an extra couple of percent on the hourly rate.

- Fcc Customer, Harpenden, UK

Mark, St Albans

100% spot on, including the duration of the overtime ban to date..........

- Andy Woodhead, London, ENGLAND

Captial Connect must immediately begin recruiting additional drivers. We must finally see an end to the working practics which depend on most staff working a six day week (overtime for the sixth day)

- Spatel, london

I don´t feel that Sir Moir Lockhead has the right approach to this problem. Strikes always disrupt timetables. The dispute is over pay. That´s the issue that has to be resolved.

- Graham Rodhouse, Helmond, Netherlands

Rail worker,

good to see your usual delusional wonk views continue to miss the point.

their normal hours are an abomination. what is it 3 days or 4 that they are expected to work? that is not a proper working week, which is why they get and deserve no sympathy.

- Scotty, London

Whats the matter with all the trade unions don't they
realise the country is deep in the Fertiliser buisnes

- Richard Edmunds, Rayleigh UK

First Capital Connect are short of train drivers, and depend on the current drivers to work overtime to make up for having a staff shortage!
It is worth remembering that all the drivers at F.C.C are all doing their NORMAL HOURS and NOT STRIKING as some press releases wrongly claim.
No company should make the employee feel that overtime should be essential to make up for shortages.
This doesn't just apply to transport, it applies to every business!
What kind of company makes sunday working voluntary?
What kind of company allows a shortage of drivers?

- Rail Worker, London

Speaking as someone who uses this line every day, I blame the management completely, oh and the drivers.

Overtime is optional and should be an bonus to drivers, not a neccessity to run a service.

FCC needs to employ enough drivers and cut overtime completely because I'm sure that the extra 15K a year most drivers make from it is not really worth the bother to them.

The most important people in this equation are the paying customers who are yet again left to rot because they are third on the list of importance but are paying everyones wages.

And this is the thrid WEEK, not day, of disruptions... Please get it right...

- Mark, St Albans

I was under the impression that overtime was optional? The blame for this is clearly with the employer who has relied on over time as a means to restrict employment for the correct ammount of drivers, in order to operate the service/franchise.

The blame here lays with the franchise NOT the drivers. Now if they striked that would be a different matter.

- Lance Johnson, Canterbury, Kent

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