Minimum service levels

I was a statutory consultee for the transport legislation changes. It was pretty obvious that the DfT officers had been told to just get on with it and didn’t think it was workable but had to carry on regardless. It’s not like there’s even different MSL’s for different operators or systems, they want a predetermined percentage across the board. It’ll never work.

Perhaps in return we should all demand a minimum service level from our ****ing useless government?! 🙄

I think they are threatening to sack workers who are on strike or something?  Its completely unworkable.  You cannot force folk to work and sacking striking staff who cannot easily be replaced will just make things worse, harden attitudes and make more go on strike.

How can they even think they can force people to work

How can they force a council/ company/ organisation  to pay for these services? Perhaps magic beans.

it's nothing more than headline grabbing bollocks.
Assuming it's legal - no definition, no specification, no proposal on how to implement, no ability to monitor and enforce compliance.
Nothing more than empty words.

The police can't strike.   Armed forces? .

Presumably police can't strike because the consequences for society would be too great. As it stands, theoretically could all doctors go on all out strike for weeks? If they could the consequences would be unthinkable.  

So why is one group banned but the other group can't have minimum service levels?

The police just quit. Do you want to make it even harder to retain medical staff?

Sounds like grounds for a national strike. Hopefully this shower of shite will be out before it comes to that.

How can they force a council/ company/ organisation to pay for these services? Perhaps magic beans.

I believe the idea is the company would just pay as normal (aka likely the reason people are out on strike) and nominate a set of employees to provide the minimum service. Those workers would then be expected to work and the union could be hit with fines if they dont.

I think they are threatening to sack workers who are on strike or something?  It’s completely unworkable.  You cannot force folk to work and sacking striking staff who cannot easily be replaced will just make things worse, harden attitudes and make more go on strike.

presumably they assume that some of the people who make lifestyle choices to life in tents in city centres would be tempted to work for NHS or trainco’s if the bloody Union staff would stop hogging the jobs!  Presumably they have focus grouped this and the core vote think they should be doing something to make it illegal to strike.

So why is one group banned but the other group can’t have minimum service levels?

The police arent employees but crown servants so operate under different rules.
Some of those rules are beneficial to the individual officers and special arrangements for pay bargaining were put in place.
So would you want those rules extending to these other groups or do they just get the downsides?

Although its worth noting that after the party of lawlessness and disorder have been at work for 13 years the police are starting to question the restrictions given the other side of the bargain isnt being kept.

It might not be workable or easily enforceable if workers don't comply, but I expect many would because it'd be illegal not to and they don't want to do illegal things. Also threats of consequences probably work; do you really have the time energy and money to go through a disciplinary/suspension or whatever at work.

There's "minimum service levels" but the bill specifies that border control, frinstance, must be no less effective than if there was no strike. That's minimum is it? And of course talking endlessly about the NHS as if there weren't already rules about strikes for them. Sunak's statement says it's all about "saving christmas" but of course it's permanent. And all pitched in "unreasonable unions" tones as if we didn't already have incredibly strict union laws.

Of course it's not really about individuals, as dodgy as forcing people to work is. It's designed mostly as an attack on unions. The legislation looks to be poorly limited and defined and as far as I can tell, puts binding requirements onto unions without actually really defining what it is that they're required to do. But if they fail to follow them then they lose protection against damages claims- which purely coincidentally the government raised the limit on to £1 million last year. So even doing their best to comply with the rules unions could fall foul, lose their protections, and be bankrupted. Unions can't compel people to work but apparently are to be held responsible if their members don't comply with the work notices.

I think there's just an outside chance that if they do this badly enough, it finally pushes unions into an existential threat situation where even going along with the rules means they're in serious danger, and so we hit the point of a real fight. But I sadly doubt it.

(aside; I used to work in exactly this climate thanks to this government; "Here are the poorly weitten rules you must follow. If you don't, you will be fined and may lose a critical licence to operate. No we can't explain the rules, just read them, that's the only advice we can give you. No if you tell us exactly what you are doing in advance we will not tell you if it complies or not. The only way to find out if you're compliant is to do it, and then see if we bust your ass. But that's your fault")

Also threats of consequences probably work; do you really have the time energy and money to go through a disciplinary/suspension or whatever at work

I’m pretty sure the legislation removes any legal protection employees have for dismissal without any recourse. That would definitely make many employees nervous, but in the instance of the railway at least, they can’t just fire a huge chunk of their driver workforce (for example) as it takes so long to train them and do route learning.

The question here is what happens when the set minimum standard is higher than on a given day when we’re not on strike, which is hypothetical it entirely possible in the NHS.

Lots of headline grabbing bollocks to appease their base, what are tbey sneaking through behind it?

I'm NHS and because we're responsible adults and know the consequences of us all downing tools and walking out, we already have set minimum service/staffing levels which we abide by during strike days. Pretty sure that's standard across the NHS already. So it's a non-issue.

presumably they assume that some of the people who make lifestyle choices to life in tents in city centres would be tempted to work for NHS or trainco’s if the bloody Union staff 

I thought that the homeless all worked in business, are they going to have to take 2 jobs now.

I’m a part of the civil service which had the right to strike removed - we get stiffed on pay deals and every other negative change that affects us. It is implemented because unions are simply not allowed to hold strike ballots or they will be sued. Management have also asked for staff to scab on Border Force strike days and provide frontier coverage, which is nice.

Previously whilst on strike we would always respond to TTLs or imminent serious crime so there was a minimum service available.

However all this has led to one union instructing staff to withdraw goodwill (no being on unpaid on call, removing informal rosters, declining overtime etc) and as our management is so poor this actually has some effect but I have never known morale to be as low as it is now.
I suspect similar action in Border Force would have a similar effect

Whenever they're in the shit, which is pretty much constantly nowadays, they just reach for the Bumper Book of Thatcherite Bollocks and see what page they open it at.

This time it happens to be the 'Attack the Unions' chapter that it fell open at. The fact that its a load of unworkable back-of-a-fag-packet nonsense that will fall apart on first contact with reality isn't really the point. They'll get some Daily Mail headlines banging on about 'The Enemy Within' and the senile pensioners who make up their membership will go misty-eyed at the thought of riot police clobbering strikers.

This kings speech is Sunaks first and his last and none of this cobblers will make it into statute anyway. Its just a desperate death rattle and has the whiff of Alan Partridge blurting out programme ideas

has the whiff of Alan Partridge blurting out programme ideas

Ooh yes, I'd vote for Monkey Tennis.

How can they legislate for minimum standards to be upheld on strike data when they struggle to reach that minimum standard on normal days? If they're not careful then strike days could actually lead to better service than normal!

Doesn't matter though as it's going to be so badly written that the first time it touches reality it'll fall down and the next government will have to cancel it and rewrite it into something that isn't written by an incoherent toddler.

It's time this lot of rabid right wing detritus was removed.

This is not democracy its the old boy network dibbling in its gravey bowls.

The whole electoral system needs reforming to ensure we never have to suffer another corrupt self serving bunch of parasites again.