Free travel for drivers

One of the union’s priorities is to attempt to secure equal and improved free travel facilities for all our members, irrespective of service. We believe this should include residential and leisure concessionary travel – which was only granted to active ‘safeguarded’ staff who were employed prior to April 1, 1996.

It is ASLEF’s belief that these concessions should be made available to all employees and their nominated partners, including same sex partners, regardless of length of service - and that the facility should be retained into retirement.

CURRENT POSITION
There are different agreements in each TOC and FOC, but in general terms they are as follows:

• All members who were employed before privatisation retained their full, protected, travel concessions - (the cut off date was 31.03.1996)
• All other members have different arrangements depending on which company they work for – but normally these include unlimited travel on the trains of the employing TOC
• Members who retire retain the entitlement they had while they were working
• Some companies that were formed after privatisation – like Freightliner Intermodal and Freightliner Heavy Haul - have no Travel Facilities at all
• GB Railfreight is a company owned by First Group. It offers unprotected members free travel on trains owned by the parent company, which includes all First Group franchises.
• Protected staff are allowed to travel at reduced rates on London Underground and Docklands Light Railway services. A number of retired members have pointed out a further difficulty with the existing system. There is a tendency for people to retire to places other than where they used to work, so they end up with a pass for another part of the country – which can make their retirement
  travel concession virtually irrelevant.

FOREIGN TRAVEL CONCESSIONS
Staff who were employed by BR prior to privatisation enjoyed varying foreign free travel concessions depending on when they entered service. However, they included free or reduced travel for drivers and their families, which differed from country to country but covered most of the world. The old 'Purple Book' has a large section at the back which defines the concessions granted by each country.

Most of them still apply. However, once children finish their full time education, they lose their travel concessions. In some cases protected drivers still have free, or reduced, travel on ferry services operatedby Whitelink and Caledonian Macbraynes.

THE WAY FORWARD
The executive committee will be considering how to take the claim forward in both political and industrial forums. One approach may be to seek the assistance of the ASLEF group of MPs, asking them to put down an Early Day Motion (EDM) and seeking the support of other Parliamentarians. However, the most likely road to success would seem to be industrially. The union will argue:

• that having different concessions for different workers effectively leaves nonprotected drivers on lower wages than their colleagues
• that there would be almost no cost to the employers to meet our claim in full – and could be beneficial to the environment because drivers who would make use of the free travel would in all probability otherwise be using personal transport.
  

Updates on the union’s efforts to achieve this policy will be reported both in the Journal and on the union’s website.