East Lancs Railway

Unless I’ve missed something we don’t know why Joanne has been barred. We’ve only heard her side of the story and it would be unusual for someone to say it’s my fault. I suspect (but don’t know) it’s not discrimination at work and there are good reasons for this.

 

The fact that the ELR chairman has been blocking anyone asking questions says a lot.

The fact that they haven't put out their side of the story says a lot.

The fact that Joanne's complaint for unfair treatment and unacceptable behaviour was upheld says a lot.

 

From what I've extrapolated and had privately mentioned to me, Joanne brought a case of harassment/ discrimination to the ELR, had the case the upheld and made passing reference to it on social media. Now the last part is where it seems Joanne got herself in hot water as it was seen as contravention of the ELRs social media policy. The only reference I can find to a grievance was written in a way that was intentionally vague and made no reference to the ELR at all and could have been something in her personal life (she does have a life outside the ELR). The ELR jumped the gun and assumed (technically correctly) it was about them which lit the touch paper on the situation and led the Chairman to block people on Twitter for the crime of following Joanne. So now the ELR need to have an iron clad excuse for firing a notable volunteer and the blocking spree or they're going to have to come begging for forgiveness as Court Of Public Opinion has ruled against them.

 

This is Joanne's full statement.

 

One would say a lot. All three, and you’ve a veritable cavalcade. I see her Twitter feed, and I wondered if the issue was at ELR. But I’d no way of knowing and, as far as I could infer, would have assumed that it was being dealt with properly. As, up to a point, it was.

Now, however, ELR have demonstrated an institutional approach that undermines the lot. Has Mike Kelly heard of Gerald Ratner?


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Just out of curiosity I looked up Mr Kelly's CV...he appears to be a "I did this" person...no mention of we...

 

I don't see how the ELR can respond to this story without going into personal details. Apart from Nat Pres I don't "do" social media so I'm no expert in this field but I guess that people are being blocked because they are asking/pestering questions that the railway cannot answer on a public forum. They are in a complete no win situation here. I suspect that they cannot convinceingly defend themselves wihout inapropriately going into personal history. Joanne, being the social media presence that she is, holds all the aces here and has the whole movement over a barrel on this one. However I do not believe that heritage railways are any more sexist (as that seems to be what this is about) than the rest of the society that we are part of.

The sad part of all this is that Joanne is an excellent engineman and has so much to offer but not for the first time has managed to alienate herself from those she is working with.

Peter

 

As I said earlier:
The best approach would have been to apologise to Joanne and immediately overhaul all ELR policies and reporting procedures so that it never happens again.

The blocking appears to have been anyone railway or Joanne related - they didn't even have to have asked anything.
If an apology and statement such as I suggested above had been issued then I doubt they would be getting the barrage of negative publicity

 

Nail, head springs to mind, Steve.

 

And perhaps work with her, including her in the process, rather than booting her out.

All this says (in the absence of any statement from the ELR and rampant social media blocking), is 'we've been found guilty of discrimination, but rather than deal with the problem, we will stick our fingers in our ears and pretend it hasn't happened and maybe it will go away'.
I trust and hope, Joanne has enough supporters to ensure the latter doesn't happen.
Given one of the people blocked is a railway magazine editor, I hope some journalism will be done.
This is an own goal & misjudgement of collosal proportions and has potential to cause immense damage to both the ELR and unfortunately, the wider industry. The fact the GM also sits on the HRA board is also concerning.
Even if there is greater fault on Joanne's behalf (I doubt this strongly, but playing devil's advocate here), going for the nuclear option and firing her, rather than dealing with the situation more sensitively, shows spectacular lack of judgment and a lack of understanding of how it would be perceived. Any decision has risk, but given her popularity (she's just won an award for her work for goodness sake!), did they not think that getting rid of her might react even more negatively on the railway than any social media post she has made??!! All they have done is prove her point and show they have not changed at all! Reminds me of the BBC and Gary Lineker to be honest.
Perhaps the chairman is that out of touch he doesn't think anyone will notice he is blocking all these people!?!
The ELR deserves everything it has coming in my view for their crass incompetence.

 

I am sorry Peter, I can not disagree with you more strongly on your last paragraph here. Joanne should not be made out to be in the wrong for highlighting discrimination, she should be championed. If you call it out you are not alienating yourself, it is a brave act - you are standing up to those who have wronged you. Let us not forget her complaints have been upheld - she isn't a pesky troublemaker. You are insinuating that she should have kept quiet because she has potential, no one should do that.
I can only gather you haven't heard her story or what she has had to put up with to become the footplate person she is today.

 

You really think Joanne is the one with the problem? Shame on you on saying such a thing.

 

The Twitter blocking has been pre-emptive, and in some cases (e.g. of Roger Ford, technology editor of Modern Railways), for no other reason than that they “follow” Joanne on Twitter. Instead of provoking an “oh dear, how sad” reaction (to be honest, my initial one on seeing her tweet), it has poured petrol on the fire, and shrieked “we’ve something to hide”.

Others have reacted to your final paragraph. If that refers to the alleged discrimination, then my reaction is along the lines of @acorb, but with added grave disappointment in someone I’d thought better.

On the other hand, it’s also occurred to me that we are in reality seeing the collapse of personal relationships between an individual and an organisation and it’s other staff. If that’s what you’re pointing towards, then I will merely observe that the ELR have handled it very poorly indeed, and are sending out a strong “if your face fits” message.


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Tracey Parkinson is either very bold, very stupid, or very right.
I haven’t a clue which!

 

There is a fourth option, that is probably the most likely - out of her depth/incompetent (in matters such as these at least).

I can't help feeling that failing to stand up for a fellow woman, whose complaints were upheld, let us not forget, suggests she possesses disappointingly low integrity.

 

Oh Dear - I knew that I would get into bother here. I don't think I've made out that she is in the wrong at all. I certainly have no reason to think that she is. She clearly feels very strongly that she has been discriminated against because of her gender and no one can argue with that - it is how she feels. Should she keep quiet about it? - that is up to her and it appears not to be in her nature to do so. Is she right to speak out about how she feels - of course, it is her right and she is perfectly entitled to do so. But actions do have consequences as is the case here.

One of the big problems of the social media age is that there is no room for compromise. Everything has to be seen as black or white, good or bad, whereas in reality there is a lot of grey in all areas of the world we live in. So here we have Joanne all good and the ELR all bad, neither of which is likely to be exactly true. The seemingly growing number of women volunteers in the heritage railway movement seems to indicate that not all of them feel discriminated against in the same way that Joanne does. That observation does not dismiss the way she feels but it also does not support the notion that sexism is rampent and institutional throughout the movement.

So should the ERL respond and apologise for its actions? Well this seems to be what the court of social media is demanding. But the realities of life suggest to me that it is quite possible that they had good reasons for acting as they did and that they may well feel that, given the personel nature of this dispute, it would be inappropriate to comment further. I am not convinced that there is any right or wrong here on either side. A very public grievence was raised on social media and what has followed is probably an inevitable progression.

I hasten to add that this is purely my personal view based on life experience (as a privilaged white midle class male of advancing years) on a situation that I only know about from what I have read here on Nat Pres. I do not wish @Joanne Crompton or anyone else any harm and would gladly enjoy her company on the footplate at any time. I just hope that I do not get misinterpreted through this post calling as I do for a more detached observation of this situation

Peter

 

Whatever the reason for the ELR acting as it did, clearly unless there was some absolutely unavoidable reason why they had to bar her from volunteering it looks like nothing other than revenge.

Coupled with the Chair, or whoever it was blocking anyone who follows her on Twitter it doesnt look good to say the least.

Several incidents spring to mind when potential plaintiffs have declined to go to law, because while they might win, they would also lose.

 

The ELR may or may not have right on their side. The fact that they haven’t even put out a “no comment” press statement, but instead chosen complete silence, does not lend credence to that possibility.


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