Bordercollie
Senior Member
It needs an express service to be competitive with driving.
|
|
|
GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Northern Light
Superstar
Ahead of what was expected to be a significant improvement in scheduled service for GO after Labour Day................
Alstom, who manages the crewing of Trains for GO has quietly recalled non-vaccinated staff (30 employees) who have been on unpaid leave since December.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...called-back-to-work-amid-staff-shortages.html (article is paywalled)
As the article does not break down the roles of the train staff laid off, if we simply assume that on average they constitute 10 3-person train crews, that represents something like 300 weekly hours of trains runs depending on dead-head times and precise schedules.
***
Because the article is behind the paywall, I'll grab a couple of bits:
“As previously notified, from December 5, 2021, Metrolinx expected all employees to be fully vaccinated to work on their premises. We want to notify you that this is no longer a requirement for current employees,” reads a letter signed by Christelle Migayron, Alstom’s human resources business partner and obtained by the Star. “We are recalling, from unpaid leave status, those employees who either self-identified as unvaccinated, or chose not to disclose vaccination status back to work by August 15, 2022.”
“Failure to respond to this notice by August 12, 2022 will be considered a resignation,” the letter goes on to say.
***
There's a bit of bafflegab in the article next:
“There are no changes to Metrolinx’s mandatory vaccination policy at this time,” Metrolinx spokesperson Nitish Bissonauth said in a statement to the Star. “Should any changes be made to this policy, Metrolinx will ensure that employees and the public are made aware.
**
Metrolinx did not clarify Friday whether its stance on the vaccination status of contractors had changed.
One could read that as saying 'there is no change to how we treat our directly employed staff; but we have allowed contractors to do something different...........or not; its a bit ambiguous.
Alstom, who manages the crewing of Trains for GO has quietly recalled non-vaccinated staff (30 employees) who have been on unpaid leave since December.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...called-back-to-work-amid-staff-shortages.html (article is paywalled)
As the article does not break down the roles of the train staff laid off, if we simply assume that on average they constitute 10 3-person train crews, that represents something like 300 weekly hours of trains runs depending on dead-head times and precise schedules.
***
Because the article is behind the paywall, I'll grab a couple of bits:
“As previously notified, from December 5, 2021, Metrolinx expected all employees to be fully vaccinated to work on their premises. We want to notify you that this is no longer a requirement for current employees,” reads a letter signed by Christelle Migayron, Alstom’s human resources business partner and obtained by the Star. “We are recalling, from unpaid leave status, those employees who either self-identified as unvaccinated, or chose not to disclose vaccination status back to work by August 15, 2022.”
“Failure to respond to this notice by August 12, 2022 will be considered a resignation,” the letter goes on to say.
***
There's a bit of bafflegab in the article next:
“There are no changes to Metrolinx’s mandatory vaccination policy at this time,” Metrolinx spokesperson Nitish Bissonauth said in a statement to the Star. “Should any changes be made to this policy, Metrolinx will ensure that employees and the public are made aware.
**
Metrolinx did not clarify Friday whether its stance on the vaccination status of contractors had changed.
One could read that as saying 'there is no change to how we treat our directly employed staff; but we have allowed contractors to do something different...........or not; its a bit ambiguous.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
A lot of employer's have dropped this requirement as of Aug 1 st.
I wonder if they plan to keep vaxxed and unvaccinated employees separate?
Especially considering you are working in such close quarters for such a long time.
Allandale25
Senior Member
Richard White
Senior Member
I wonder what the actual reasoning is behind this. Staff illness is too generic to be the actual cause.
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist but my gut tells me there is more to this story.
crs1026
Superstar
No, actually the sick calls are real. The complicating factors are a) it’s summer, so staff who would normally be available to backfill a sudden absence aren’t available b) a Covid absence is not a 24-hour flu…. once the person gets sick they stay off longer, so the impact of any one absence is greater and c) there is a staff shortage, so again no defense in depth.
- Paul
Northern Light
Superstar
Doubtless you're entirely accurate; but there's no excuse for GO or Alstom.
Self-inflicted wounds are real, but not reasonable.
Covid has been a known commodity for ~ 2 years now; and summers happen every year.
There should be sufficient staff hired, trained, retained to operate service with spare board, in all seasons.
If one is responsibly doing all of the above, that minimizes any risks.
Add to that,if one is tracking that planning is delivering results (in this case in staffing) as it should; and sees any indication of a problem, you start doing what you need to by way of mitigation, early.
- Accelerate burn-in of new staff; up retention bonuses, ask nicely for people to defer some vacation time, and compensate them accordingly.
Allandale25
Senior Member
GO Transit workers vote 93 per cent in favour of strike if no deal is reached
TORONTO - The union representing 2,200 GO Transit bus operators, station attendants, plant and fleet maintenance workers, transit safety officers, and office professionals says their members have voted 93 per cent in favour of going on strike if necessary.
www.thestar.com
smallspy
Senior Member
This is great in theory.
And yes, a very large part of the pain currently being felt regarding staffing shortages is entirely self-inflicted. (If you don't pay people enough to deal with your bullshit, you think that they are going to stay around? Just ask the nurses....)
And there is certainly the issue of not having enough people applying and going through training to cover all of the losses and sicknesses.
But I would argue that the majority of the problem is entirely structural, and caused by the contracting out of the service to a private "partner" - Alstom. It is in their best interest to be profitable, and the best way for them to do this is to run extremely fine margins when it comes to staffing. While they certainly have penalties for not making service, are those penalties large enough to dissuade them from getting to that point in the first place?
You want to minimize the risks of this kind of thing happening? Take the profit away from any third-parties, and operate the service entirely in-house.
Dan
crs1026
Superstar
No argument. I deliberately wrote my point c) to be non-judgemental.
The pandemic seems to have caught many employers by surprise, in ways that I have little sympathy for. It turns out, when your workplace wasn't all that well run, and you suddenly lay off huge numbers of people, they adapt and find new jobs.... and then when you call them back, and they don't rush to come back, you express surprise and disappointment. People on the shop floor don't always drink the Kool-Aid that the executive level has been bathing in. There are lots of good things about employment with GO, but it is not a perfect environment and for some laid-off workers who hired on elsewhere, maybe the grass turned out to be greener.
In ML's case, while there is some of that, their situation has some excusable factors. Like the airlines, they have tried to ramp up service faster than they can attract people back. The training requirements place limits on how quickly they can hire new staff. Ridership has returned in different places than it existed previously and some trial and error has been needed to put the trains where most needed. (Hint: weekend summer events downtown rather than weekday peak).
A lot of industries seem to have written this whole phenomenon off as a short term blip that has no long term significance. I will be interested to see whether the business observers come to find case studies of companies that weathered the pandemic with minimal labour disruption, and who adapted effectively. It's a little soon for those case studies to emerge.
- Paul
crs1026
Superstar
I'm not sure that I would say eliminate all contracting out - no efficiency gain to be had in building a monolith - but there is a lot of dysfunction in how GO is run.
The war stories that one hears (and you and I do hear some of the same stories from the same people) suggest that there are too many contractors in play, between CN, CP, Alstom, the track contractors, and the construction arm. And even VIA.
It sounds like this job market is stealing people from each other (such that every hole filled creates a hole in another organization, so no net improvement in the workforce numbers). In some cases, it is alleged that non-performing managers and staff simply move on and then reappear at another agency, and move on again when they again become problems.
The new contract operator will arrive to find a system that is fairly well maintained and equipped. I wonder what they will think of the laboour situation..... it may well be the GO network's achilles heel. Maybe some changes will be made.
- Paul
nfitz
Superstar
The 7th wave only just peaked in Ontario - deaths should peak soon.
The current variant is very contagious to those who are already vaccinated, especially if they haven't had a booster for months. It's easy enough to believe that it could sweep through a group of employees.
There are limits on how much one can prepare in these extreme conditions.
To me, this potentially warrants a 'shuttle' route that just runs back and forth between Kitchener and Guelph all day, supplementing the Toronto-bound service on the line. Even more so once Breslau station comes online.
It wouldn't need to be a 12-car hulk, maybe a 6-car train. Based on schedules it looks to be about 17 mins to run between Kitchener GO and Guelph GO, and 20 mins for the reverse trip. So theoretically, you could run a 45-min service with 1 train.
generalcanada
Senior Member
now that makes sense. unions about to strike so people take their "sick days"GO Transit workers vote 93 per cent in favour of strike if no deal is reached
TORONTO - The union representing 2,200 GO Transit bus operators, station attendants, plant and fleet maintenance workers, transit safety officers, and office professionals says their members have voted 93 per cent in favour of going on strike if necessary.
Allandale25
Senior Member
Did you read the article? It says "2,200 GO Transit bus operators, station attendants, plant and fleet maintenance workers, transit safety officers, and office professionals". It doesn't mention train operators.