Documents railway 33 results

"In the mid-2000s, the Single Market Program and European Monetary Union lost momentum, as public services advocates increasingly succeeded in tempering attempts to liberalize public utilities through legislative amendments and Court of Justice rulings. After the 2008 crisis, however, the EU's shift to a new economic governance (NEG) regime provided EU executives with a new tool to advance their objectives. Unlike EU directives, country-specific NEG prescriptions require neither the approval of the European Parliament nor their transposition into law, making it more difficult for social forces to contest them. Our analysis of NEG prescriptions for public utilities in two sectors (rail and water) and four countries (Germany, Ireland, Italy, Romania) across 10 years (2009–2019) shows that the shift to NEG provided EU executives with new extra-parliamentarian and extra-juridical tools that allowed them to revive their stalled commodification agenda; at the price of accentuating the EU's democratic and justice deficits."

"This article considers World War I era labor insurgency through an examination of the 1920 ‘outlaw' switchmen's strike, one of the largest rank-and-file revolts of the postwar strike wave. Drawing upon Bureau of Investigation surveillance reports, the article argues the strike represented not so much an expression of a ‘syndicalist impulse' as a struggle over the definition of the new unionism and the ideological legacy of the war. Inspired by the wartime rhetoric of Americanism and industrial democracy, pressed by the rising cost of living, and frustrated with the failure of the state and their parent unions to deliver living wages, the insurgents briefly succeeded in building democratic, cross-craft unions. The rebel unionists failed, but the ‘Outlaw Strike' arguably was as important as the later and larger 1922 national shopmen's strike in the way it highlighted issues of wages, union democracy, and employee representation."

"This railway manual gives a brief overview of the process of social dialogue with particular examples and recommendations for the railways sector. Social dialogue practices are country- and context-specific, and depend on specific industrial relations experience. Different “checklist” sections throughout the manual are intended to raise questions or topics to improve preparation for social dialogue. This manual is in three sections. Part One highlights the importance of social dialogue. Part Two provides background and recent developments in the railways sector that might be helpful in defining and preparing social dialogue. Part Three explains in more detail the practical implementation of social dialogue and gives examples of the process of conducting social dialogue."

"Gender equality, as well as diversity, represents a crucial resource for an innovative society. A more gender balanced society will improve competitiveness and business opportunities. The representation of women in the transport sector is rather low compared with the labor market as a whole. This is particularly true for the railway sector, where only 18 % of the workforce are women. Women represent a large part of the available human resources in designing the future rail sector. Today, the division of labor is clearly gendered and men are foremost represented in technical and operational functions whereas women work in service areas (Corral & Isusi 2007). The unequal gender representation presents a problem for a sustainable and innovative railway sector. Research has shown that companies with an equal balance of men and women are twice as innovative as other companies. Researchers calculate that businesses can boost their innovation capacity by 110% by increasing the share of women from 25% to 40% (Forsknings? & Innovationsstyrelsen 2007). A gender balanced workforce means that companies become far better at developing new products and services. Gender mainstreaming is a useful strategy for promoting a gender equal railway sector. Gender mainstreaming means to integrate a gender perspective into all policy and planning processes. It is as a tool to identify imbalances and inequalities in processes where gender before has been invisible or regarded as not important."

"This paper describes an experiment that was undertaken to compare three levels of automation in rail signalling; a high level in which an automated agent set routes for trains using timetable information, a medium level in which trains were routed along pre-defined paths, and a low level where the operator (signaller) was responsible for the movement of all trains. These levels are described in terms of a Rail Automation Model based on previous automation theory (Parasuraman et al., 2000). Performance, subjective workload, and signaller activity were measured for each level of automation running under both normal operating conditions and abnormal, or disrupted, conditions. The results indicate that perceived workload, during both normal and disrupted phases of the experiment, decreased as the level of automation increased and performance was most consistent (i.e. showed the least variation between participants) with the highest level of automation. The results give a strong case in favour of automation, particularly in terms of demonstrating the potential for automation to reduce workload, but also suggest much benefit can achieved from a mid-level of automation potentially at a lower cost and complexity."

"Ergonomics/human factors is, above anything else, a systems discipline and profession, applying a systems philosophy and systems approaches. Many things are labelled as system in today's world, and this paper specifies just what attributes and notions define ergonomics/human factors in systems terms. These are obviously a systems focus, but also concern for context, acknowledgement of interactions and complexity, a holistic approach, recognition of emergence and embedding of the professional effort involved within organization system. These six notions are illustrated with examples from a large body of work on rail human factors."

"L'objet de cet article est d'explorer, dans une perspective clinique, les mécanismes organisationnels qui favorisent le déni du travail, à partir de l'exemple de deux démarches qualité déployées à la SNCF dans le domaine de la relation de service dans les années 2000, les projets Transilien et Gares en mouvement. Les normes de service définies dans le cadre de ces deux démarches ont contribué au déni du travail des agents en front office de la SNCF, essentiellement parce que le respect de ces normes est devenu une fin en soi. Cette situation a fait naître chez ces agents une activité « contrariée », telle qu'elle a été conceptualisée par Yves Clot, dans la mesure où ils ont perçu les normes comme une entrave à la réalisation d'un travail de qualité. Dans les deux cas étudiés, le déni a porté simultanément sur la réalité (dans laquelle le travail de ces agents devait s'exercer), le travail réel (par opposition au travail prescrit) et le « réel du travail » (au sens où l'entend la psychodynamique du travail, autrement dit ce qui résiste aux prescriptions organisationnelles)."

"This paper draws upon the work of Richard Hyman to examine the question of union renewal in France. Developing a discussion around union renewal is particularly significant in the context of France, since studies on French unions since the mid-1980s have centred on the movement's ‘decline' and ‘crisis', and France has rarely been included in comparative studies on union renewal and revitalisation. The paper uses empirical data collected from 2003-2010 to present a case study of SUD-Rail, a breakaway union formed in the French public railway sector in 1996 from an ideological split with one of France's largest union confederations, the Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT). SUD-Rail forms part of a wider set of SUD unions that have emerged since the late-1980s with the stated aim of revitalising French unionism by mobilising new collectivities and energising workplace union structures. This paper analyses the development of this movement over the last fifteen years, its attempts to renew and revitalise collective action and organisation, and explores the wider implications for union renewal in France. The paper argues that the development of SUDRail represents evidence of Hyman's oft-mentioned tension in the identity of unions as both movements and organisations which has wider implications for understanding the possibilities and limitations of union action."