A campaign to increase the number of female, BAME and younger train drivers is being launched after a study revealed the “glaring gap” between their numbers and those in the population they serve.
Aslef, the train drivers’ union, said just 6.5% of drivers in England, Wales and Scotland were women, 8% were from a minority ethnic background and 15% were under 35.
Okay. Go into the crew mess room at Paddington and you will see a fairly mixed bag. I’ve sat beside a fair number of female drivers in the cab of trains when carrying out assessments. So what’s the problem here?
In its report, On track with diversity, to be published in parliament on Monday, the union will call for targeted action from train operators to tackle the issue.
Surely you advertise for people to fill the posts you have vacant and apply the selection process evenly across all of those candidates. Yes? Or not? And if not, what competence requirements are you planning to dilute?
Aslef’s general secretary, Mick Whelan, said he wanted to see “fewer people who look like me”. After 35 years in the industry he said he was well aware how many train drivers were middle-aged, male, and white.
Fine. Move to somewhere like Nigeria and work on their railway, that will do the trick.
The union was working with private train and freight operating companies every day to encourage the recruitment and retention of under-represented groups.
Okay, fine. What about this for an idea? Recruit and retain suitably competent people regardless of ethnicity and background. Radical, or what? It’s all very well saying you want more women and more BAME candidates, but if they don’t apply or the ones who do are unable to meet the fitness requirements, it’s all a bit moot isn’t it? So we go back to the purest form of equality – competence and fitness for the role. Nothing else matters.
“We believe that a train driver is a train driver is a train driver – regardless of gender, sexuality, religion or race – and we’ve been pushing the companies to allow more part-time and flexible working because the lack of such agreements has been a barrier, in the past, to women coming into our industry as many still take on the primary responsibility for childcare,” said Whelan.
Didn’t I just say that?
“From the data we have seen women, people of BAME backgrounds and those aged under 35 are not only under represented in rail as a whole, but are especially under represented in the driver grade. The reasons for this should be understood,” the report states.
Shift work is really shitty. Drivers’ shifts especially so. There, answered that one for you.
A campaign to increase the number of female, BAME and younger train drivers is being launched after a study revealed the “glaring gap” between their numbers and those in the population they serve.
You could say the same regarding refuse collectors, sewer maintenance workers, and even foundry workers. Don’t seem to recall much agitation over minority under-representation there.
That doesn’t count, because reasons.
Wonder what the RMT make of this cobblers.
Skills competence aptitude reliability, pride in work, cool headed under stress, and the ability not to take the piss out of the excellent sick pay schemes good jobs carry go a long way in these types of jobs, there are good reasons the majority of people you see doing them well are from a certain age group.
Nothing whatsoever to do with sex or colour or nationality, if you’re going to pay good money to blue collar workers from whom you demand high standards it makes sense to cherry pick those who may well have established a good work record already, seeing how difficult it now is to get rid of those who turn out to have been employed in error, ie morph into sick note liabilities or start claiming ‘childcare’ issues to get out of fulfilling their duties once their feet are under the table.
LR, you may well have many years of practical experience on the railways but that is – well, so white male (patriachal, sexist, racist…..)
“Diversity” uber alles. If the chosen everybody but white men don’t like shifts, then you know what the white men can do (subtle hint, the shifts nobody else wants to).
In the new railway group hug, each train will have a white man assigned as responsible and if there are any incidents when the rainbow alliance are actually in the cab, the white man takes the blame.
After all, you have centuries of rape, genocide and oppression to make up for.
And besides, everybody knows that trains were stolen from wakanda.
Dear Mr Longrider
I assume Mr Whelan will be absolutely ecstatic to learn that the person about to operate on his brain gained his/her/its brian surgery licence because of his/her/its BAME etc score and not because of any special competency in brain surgery.
DP
I have always thought that race or gender should be totally irrelevant when it comes to hiring, that it makes sense to hire the best person for the job. I would have thought that those BAME people would have taken it as an insult that they had to rely on reverse discrimination to get a job. But then, when it comes to hiring foreign looking people, why are those of oriental appearance perceived as being highly intelligent and hardworking while those of BAME appearance are viewed with suspicion? These prejudices don’t develop in a vacuum.
Have you noticed the lack of protests over the low (very low) numbers of women or BAME employed in clearing sewers, emptying the bins, deep sea fishing, or working on road repairs? Perhaps the equality they are demanding is selective, as is the type of employment (highly paid) they are willing to do?