Tube drivers striking questions

[DrSnoosnoo]

I think I know why they're striking.

I've read some drivers saying how difficult and dangerous a job it is. When I ask what is dangerous about it, I am then accused of being narrow minded etc etc. and the reply is generally:

[Ste]

"More modern trains, making up the majority of stock, drive and stop themselves, relying on automatic signalling. On these, it's the driver's job to decide when to close the doors and leave stations. He or she can also override the system in case of an emergency, such as a customer falling on the track. All trains are set to move to the modern system by 2020, TfL says."

"The unions argue that introducing all-night services will make the hours worked more unsociable and say the dispute is not about pay. TfL argues the recruitment of 137 extra drivers will "reduce the impact on our existing drivers"."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33459515

[DrSnoosnoo]

[Ste]

An open letter from a driver says it's about the night shifts and their work life balance.

https://metro.co.uk/2015/07/09/tube-strikes-are-not-about-money-and-tfl-dont-even-want-a-night-service-says-worker-in-open-letter-5287355/#mv-b

On nearly £50k a year I'm not sure they're getting much sympathy!

[Rogerborg]

I'm not sure why we even need a 'driver' in each (modern) train at all. The interactions happen at the stations, and can be done there.

And not necessarily by people either.

If they don't want to work nights then fine, sack the whole whinging bunch of them and let's leave it to Skynet.

I keep hearing that driverless cars can spot a kitten wandering through busy traffic at 500 yards; monitoring a station would appear to be a much easier task.
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[Ste]

First Great Western are also striking because new trains won't have an onboard guard and the buffet car will be replaced by someone with a trolley going up and down the train.

Sorry but those are both good things. The buffet car just takes up space in a usually over crowded train and it's not like anyone can afford to buy anything from it due to ticket prices.

On board guards are to be replaced with a safety competent train manager on every train.

Apparently the quality of service and safety of passengers will suffer with the buffet car and on board guard both gone. I don't see how but what would I know, I'm only a FGW customer.

[-]

It's because unions don't live in the real world.
£45K a year for sitting at the front of a train?

These are the tossers that were demanding more money during the Olympics. Not because they would be working different hours, oh no, just because the Olympics were on, they thought they were so uber important that they should get more cash.

If you don't like working unsociable hours, pushing a close door button for £50K a year, go find another job that pays that sort of cash for a job a monkey could do. Grrrr!
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[DrSnoosnoo]

Ste, I read that letter also. It doesn't actually say anything apart from, we don't want to work nights so you can pi$$ off.

The individual I was talking to was saying that 50k isn't a big wage! I'd do it. I suggested that if that money wasn't good enough to live in London, perhaps they should move to a commuter town that 85% (unknown statistic don't ask for sauce) of people have to do who rely on the rail network to get to work.

"They can't help where they're born" was their response, it doesn't make sense.

It will average 3 weeks on days, one week on nights, or thereabout. How will this be stealing their time with their families away? They get over a month holiday a year!

I'm glad I'm not the only one that hasn't been enlightened as to what is upsetting these train pilots.
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[Ste]

Just remember, it's not about the money!

[DrSnoosnoo]

It's riled me has this.

We get auto trains, they demand that a driver should be present and still get paid the massive going rate, we get automated services which will reduce staff and give a cost saving for the customer, that's not fair, we want our big monies jobs regardless of the work we have to do.

That was a bit of a mind fart rant which makes no sense but shutup!
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[grr666]

At least we can be grateful that fat scrounger Bob Crow is dead or we'd have had a tube strike every couple of months.
Big hearted Bob, so big it imploded. Perhaps because completely out of character he attempted to do a stroke
of work one day and it was too much for his ticker. Because the day he started being the figurehead of the RMT
was about the last time he did a days work. That's how he came to be so fat, excessive boozing (many pics of him
in the pub drinking away with his fat red face) combined with no physical activity led him to the inevitable coronary event.

110k and a council house, and he got his Mrs a plum union non-job as well because he pulled a few strings.
A fucking (thankfully dead) disgrace! Unfortunately however, it seems his rancid anti productivity ideals aren't dead.
Where's Maggie the union smasher when you need her, I'm not sure Camerons got the stones to take it to 'em again.

My Mrs was supposed to go to London for a work related meeting today and because of a combination of
different types of bone fucking idle entitled unionist train and tube drivers that was an impossible journey
so it had to be cancelled. They'll be complaining they have to sit down all day next.
I truly despair of the union mindset, I can't see for one second how their antics are good for the Uk at all.
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Ste wrote: Avatars are fine, it's signatures that need turning off.

[Raffles]

The days of industrial action being buldozed through by a handful of militant activists may be numbered:-

Trades Union Bill
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[grr666]

Jolly good show, that's more like it!
Welcome to the competitive real world the rest of us have to earn a living in.
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Ste wrote: Avatars are fine, it's signatures that need turning off.

[N cee thirty]

I used to think that driver-less trains were a bad idea, but when you get these tossers striking on what seems to be an essential service, it's time things changed.

Don't like the terms of your employment? well fuck off somewhere else as there's plenty of people coming in this country every year keen for work.
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Jewlio Iglesias wrote: I actually did vote BNP once

[Raffles]

[DrSnoosnoo]

[Ste]

[wr6133]

I'm normally happy to wave a red flag and espouse pretty militant left wing views but for once I think BNP72 has a very good point.

[N cee thirty]

[DrSnoosnoo]

[TheArchitect]

To add something relevant to compare with, the DLR service in London is basically a self-driving, fully automated an self regulating rail system that has one attendant/conductor on board who's job is to close the doors when the platform is clear and to occasionally check tickets.

So going by what's been described of the newer tube trains, the tube drivers are doing exactly the same job as the DLR attendants but with the added laborious task of having to open doors when they get to the station, but on the flip side they don't have to check tickets.

I have no idea how much the typical DLR attendant earns but I have a feeling it's not anywhere near £50k.
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[Polarbear]

I do worry that all the good work done in the past to get decent wages for their workers by unions is slowly and surely being eroded by powers that be.

New union laws about strike votes which if put in place for a general election would mean we would never get an elected government.

Using every opportunity to denigrate workers who go on strike irrespective of the reasons for striking. (Note I am talking generally here, not specifically about the tube drivers who do earn a good wage).

Having as large a pool of potential workers as possible so they CAN say, 'If you don't like it, fuck off, there is always someone else.

I do get a feeling of Dickensian times ahead for the country.

Funny that of all the public sector workers the MP's are the only ones to get a decent wage rise.
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[Rogerborg]

[grr666]

If you don't like following orders or your work conditions (of a job you applied for let's not forget) then
there's nothing stopping anybody starting their own business doing whatever it is they do or retraining and working to their own rules.
But the paid holidays and sick pay and union 'assistance' go right out of the window and most can't hack that.
Probably because they've weighed themselves down with family commitments or mortgages they can
only just afford or both. That and many haven't the nerve/business acumen/skills/enthusiasm/work ethic/
determination/education to go it alone. Who's fault is that?

If you go into a restaurant and order a steak, you can hardly complain when you get a steak.


If you want to work for someone else then you kinda have to do what they say, that's the way it is.
In the big scale of things employee<employer.
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Ste wrote: Avatars are fine, it's signatures that need turning off.

[Ribenapigeon]

Its not just the drivers though. There's a lot more support staff who will be on wages well below average. Id pretty fukin pissed off if my management tried to turn my job into twenty four hour cover. The media cover this point up though. Of course when the 100k a year journos go on strike they keep quiet about their wages.