Steam Packet Warns Of Disruption To Sailings

[woolley]

29 minutes ago, Frances said:

but not enough to consider a regular timetabled operation - if it replaces the boat on the Heysham route then it needs special arrangements at Heysham to load passengers;

It won't do that. It can't carry freight. For the operation to be viable freight and passengers have to be combined into one vessel.

[woolley]

1 hour ago, code99 said:

In March 2022 P&O fired 800 shipping staff. Their Executive Directors were publicly grilled by a House of Commons Select Committee. The P&O Chairman/ MD admitted they had broken the law. Since then, the employment laws in the UK were modified by the Tories (even though many of whom would love to drag the UK back into Dickensian times) in order to avert similar situations occurring. Whether it is legal to do the same thing here i.e., deliberately decreasing the working conditions for employees, is not something this Island should be proud of, IMHO.

There is a more fundamental debate here. Should a group with a particular set of working practices from the past have a veto over management wishing to change the mode of operation to improve service resilience? It's a problem on the railways in Britain too. Some of the union preserved Spanish practices there date back to the steam age. Remember Wapping? If the print unions had their way at the time, they would still be typesetting every page of print manually. But actually they wouldn't, because every paper would cost a tenner and publication would have long since ceased. Times change, things move on.

The Steam Packet situation doesn't really reflect the P&O action despite efforts to so portray it. P&O didn't offer any alternative method of working on enhanced pay. They simply sacked those people.

[Barlow]

25 minutes ago, woolley said:

There is a more fundamental debate here. Should a group with a particular set of working practices from the past have a veto over management wishing to change the mode of operation to improve service resilience? It's a problem on the railways in Britain too.

I've done a fair bit of rail travel UK this past 18 months. Just when things seem to go hunky dory with everything on time, efficient, clean, e-tickets (took a while for me to get used to that but it is absolutely fantastic), phone apps with the very latest train information etc. etc. then that seems to be when the unions think "... 'old on, fings is getting too good 'round 'ere, everybody is 'appy. We carn't 'av that. We're going on strike for more money". And everything goes for a ball of shit for a few months.

 

eta:

All unions leaders and spokesmen wear flat caps and speak in a pseudo cockney accent. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Barlow

[Banker]

Someone on Mannin line said they were due to get last night’s boat and only sailing that they have been offered is 1am Thursday , others on saying no availability before Xmas 

[John Wright]

42 minutes ago, woolley said:

There is a more fundamental debate here. Should a group with a particular set of working practices from the past have a veto over management wishing to change the mode of operation to improve service resilience? It's a problem on the railways in Britain too. Some of the union preserved Spanish practices there date back to the steam age. Remember Wapping? If the print unions had their way at the time, they would still be typesetting every page of print manually. But actually they wouldn't, because every paper would cost a tenner and publication would have long since ceased. Times change, things move on.

The Steam Packet situation doesn't really reflect the P&O action despite efforts to so portray it. P&O didn't offer any alternative method of working on enhanced pay. They simply sacked those people.

I’m yet to be convinced by the resilience argument.

SPCo should be able to say, over the last 5, or 10, years, exactly how many sailings were cancelled, either as one rotation, ie there and back, two rotations, 4 sailings, or more. And an analysis of how manny sailings they could have “rescued” with live on board.

The fact the steam packet management haven’t hints that it won’t be many rescued sailings. 

Just like you say workers shouldn’t have a veto, neither should Managment have the right to impose more onerous working conditions, capriciously.

Very few short sea crossing operators, 4 hours or less, even those with round the clock operations, actually have live on board for the two crews.

Some posters have suggested that it’ll be better accommodation than currently provided by the SPCo on shore for its seasonal and Eastern European/Far Eastern customer service staff. That misses the point. They’re going to be live on board two weeks on, followed by shore for two weeks off.

I don’t know the exact crewing levels, but with leave, holiday cover, sickness resilience MX must have at least 5 crews, 2 on rota, 2 off, spare to cover.

I don’t think it’s a Spanish practice, far from it.

Still don’t understand why they can’t negotiate contract terms providing for, say, live on board, for up to 24 long day trips a year, and the second crew in any 24 hour period to have to report and live on board on 6 or 12 hours notice if there was a weather cancellation warning.

I think management have taken a decision without consultation, committed to it in design and build, and presented as a fair accompli. That hasn’t gone well, and they daren’t back now or they think they’ll be seen as weak.

It’s ripe for arbitration. Union wants that. Management refuse. And their argument is specious. The arbitrator won’t be Manx, so won’t understand!

[woolley]

7 minutes ago, John Wright said:

 I think management have taken a decision without consultation, committed to it in design and build, and presented as a fair accompli. That hasn’t gone well, and they daren’t back now or they think they’ll be seen as weak.

Perhaps, as we speculated the other day, the resilience and windage issues are combined to a greater extent than we know, in which case they cannot back down and maintain a viable schedule.

All wild conjecture of course.

[Barlow]

19 minutes ago, Banker said:

Someone on Mannin line said they were due to get last night’s boat and only sailing that they have been offered is 1am Thursday , others on saying no availability before Xmas 

That's not a bad offer, at least they got one. But will it too be cancelled.

I am interested and would normally have tuned in, but unfortunately can't stand Mannin Line since Wint took over. Any chance of Stu Peters being removed from Keys and put back on the radio. The boy Brindley actually didn't make a bad job of it when he stood in. But of course I digress. Wrong thread.

 

[Andy Onchan]

26 minutes ago, John Wright said:

I think management have taken a decision without consultation, committed to it in design and build, and presented as a fair accompli. That hasn’t gone well, and they daren’t back now or they think they’ll be seen as weak.

That's not what Brian Thompson said in his MR interview: https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/steam-packet-md-hugely-disappointed-by-industrial-action/

[A fool and his money.....]

Listening to Brian Thomson on the radio this morning, I think there's little wonder this dispute is still dragging on.

He came across as very arrogant and dictatorial. Hi main argument seems to be that if you decide to be a seafarer then you should expect to live on board. Presumably despite the fact that you may have been a seafarer for many years and having a contract of employment that states the opposite.

He also went on to say that the Racket doesn't expect workers to go over and above their contact so the work to rule won't make much difference, but then goes on to say he can't guarantee sailings won't be cancelled as a result, not sure which is true.

He doesn't seem to have many leadership qualities to me.

[woolley]

14 minutes ago, Barlow said:

That's not a bad offer, at least they got one. But will it too be cancelled.

I am interested and would normally have tuned in, but unfortunately can't stand Mannin Line since Wint took over. Any chance of Stu Peters being removed from Keys and put back on the radio. The boy Brindley actually didn't make a bad job of it when he stood in. But of course I digress. Wrong thread.

 

Wint's ok. It's the blessed adverts (quantity, volume and inanity) that have me reaching for the button. Can't abide it.

QUAYSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!      

And all of that.

Shout it as loud as you like. It won't make me buy it.

[John Wright]

23 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

That's not what Brian Thompson said in his MR interview: https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/steam-packet-md-hugely-disappointed-by-industrial-action/

But, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

Its at direct odds with what the officers are saying.

One or other is lying, or they haven’t been listening to one another properly, for years.

I remember chatting to a bridge officer on one of the first Dublin sailings post Covid, in late spring 2022. Disquiet was expressed then, and I posted about it in this thread at the time.

[Banker]

37 minutes ago, A fool and his money..... said:

Listening to Brian Thomson on the radio this morning, I think there's little wonder this dispute is still dragging on.

He came across as very arrogant and dictatorial. Hi main argument seems to be that if you decide to be a seafarer then you should expect to live on board. Presumably despite the fact that you may have been a seafarer for many years and having a contract of employment that states the opposite.

He also went on to say that the Racket doesn't expect workers to go over and above their contact so the work to rule won't make much difference, but then goes on to say he can't guarantee sailings won't be cancelled as a result, not sure which is true.

He doesn't seem to have many leadership qualities to me.

But the union leader sound’s just as bad , bit like the railways guy 

[Andy Onchan]

20 minutes ago, John Wright said:

But, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

Its at direct odds with what the officers are saying.

One or other is lying, or they haven’t been listening to one another properly, for years.

I remember chatting to a bridge officer on one of the first Dublin sailings post Covid, in late spring 2022. Disquiet was expressed then, and I posted about it in this thread at the time.

As I say, two sides to the story.

[John Wright]

3 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

As I say, two sides to the story.

SPCo management are certainly stretching truth to the limits about where crew come from. Think they’ve claimed 80% as non resident.

Yet the Sea Services/User Agreement mandates 75% of core crew ( bridge, deck and engineering officers ) on the main vessel must be Manx resident.

[Omobono]

9 minutes ago, John Wright said:

SPCo management are certainly stretching truth to the limits about where crew come from. Think they’ve claimed 80% as non resident.

Yet the Sea Services/User Agreement mandates 75% of core crew ( bridge, deck and engineering officers ) on the main vessel must be Manx resident.

its time the management learned exactly what is written in the user agreement , some apects being very conveniently ignored