Freight companies

DB Schenker management have apparently announced depot closures and potential redundancies of 118 drivers and other staff. This looks to have been precipitated by the sudden drop in business moving coal to the UK's many coal-fired power stations. If there is less work, there should simply be more...

In December, EWS announced plans to cut 15% of its workforce, across all grades. EWS - recently taken over by German state-owned railway company DeutscheBahn and renamed DB Schenker - is to shed 530 jobs. It is placing many workers on ‘zero-hours’ contracts, an appalling set-up under which you are...

EWS is being taken over by the German state owned operator DB. At a recent meeting Transnet (the German rail union) briefed ASLEF on the implications for EWS. As Tosh McDonald (ASLEF vice president) reports, any existing management that doesn’t fit in with how Railion (DB’s railfreight group) run...

After years of attacking its staff and bashing the unions, EWS has produced restructuring plans that are an insult to all groundstaff. They may be a joke, or an attempt to make us accept a milder version at a later date. We're not laughing. Management want to: make hours even more anti-social; make...

In August ASLEF train drivers at GB Railfreight voted by about 2:1 not to strike against the company closing the final-salary pension scheme to new starters. While RMT and TSSA were holding an industry- wide aggregated ballot on pension rights in June, ASLEF negotiated their way out of the dispute...

GNER Central Trains South EastTrains Updates GNER GNER wants to put in barriers at Kings Cross and other stations on the East Coast route, massively cutting commission earned by on-board ticket-checking staff. Ticket Examiners could lose up to a third of their income, and the gap between lower-paid...

In the last Off The Rails, we reported on the issues behind the strike on EWS, and the start of the workforce's determined campaign to defend jobs and conditions. We also told how the employer had used the anti-union laws to gain an injunction to stop RMT's strike action - and how RMT had appealed...

EWS is on a crusade to introduce a new driver restructuring initiative. Most traincrew will be familiar with these - drivers' pay goes up, but with it comes extra duties, more anti-social hours, worse conditions, and wholesale attacks on other grades. EWS is touting an offer of £40k + £5k in bonuses...