Strikes, strikes and more strikes

[ThunderGuts]

It's becoming a bit of a recurring theme these days. Trains, buses, tube, postal workers, baggage handlers, ambulance staff, nurses? There is seemingly an almost endless line of sectors either already undertaking a, or planning to, strike. I've never known anything quite like it over my lifetime, others may be able to tell me it's the same issues the country has seen going back decades where strikes have happened previously.

I get it; it's financially challenging at the moment. House prices, while coming down a bit, are still astronomical for most, coupled with rapidly increasing mortgage rates, high energy and food bills means anyone with a stretched income is immediately hitting difficult times. I can see why unions want their members to get inflation-matching (or even surpassing) rises in remuneration.

Where I struggle though is I just don't understand the mentality because most of these sectors (particularly NHS) are already on their knees financially. Train operating companies I don't think (happy to be corrected) aren't rolling around in billions in profit. So where does the money come from if there aren't enormous margins to eat into? Yes, I'm sure there are some significant efficiencies to be had, but people have been trying to reform the NHS for years so I can't see it suddenly getting successful. For government funded sectors, this will mean ultimately an increased allocation; unless tax goes up (and we're already seeing changes in this area as it is just to cope with the status quo) the only other thing is to cut budgets elsewhere. HS2 would be a good place to start, but in reality culling one-off projects isn't a sustainable way to fund recurring shortfalls in budget. Give every NHS employee a 10% rise, you'd need to find £3,360,000,000 this year alone (assuming 1.2 million NHS employees, average salary of £28k according to Google). That's public sector. Take rail companies, the only way (I assume) to get a significant income injection would be to boost ticket prices. Which hurts everyone else. In which case, one of two outcomes; either "everyone else" is worse off, or "everyone else" squeezes their employers for a rise, putting up prices and ultimately making the increase the original strikers got to be less effective, i.e. driving inflation up.

I'm not sure there's any magic silver bullet to any of this; the costs are primarily being driven by something we have limited control over (the war in Ukraine) and the direct and indirect consequences, but I think in reality a lot of areas have been under strain for some time and the fallout from the ongoing war has just accelerated things. Do we just tighten our belts? Have we been used to such a good standard of life for so long we just don't understand real austerity? When I was a kid (80s), the toys and possessions I had were limited and we lived in a pretty average house with an average income. It just was the way it was. We were content to play out on a battered second hand bike all day. We holidayed occasionally, it was often just down the road on a campsite. If we were lucky, we'd get a small cottage somewhere every few years. My peers were all much the same. I talk to people born in the middle of the 20th century or even earlier, and the proverbial "hoop and a stick" was your lot as a kid. Yes, probably slightly tongue in cheek, but the point is these days even children seem to expect (and a lot get) things like smartphones, foreign holidays, driving lessons when they get to 17, an expectation of so much. Adults even more so, with brand new cars on finance, every subscription service under the sun, Deliveroo sending overpriced food to your door on a regular basis etc.. (many generalisations in all of this of course, but it does seem to be quite common if not typical).

Maybe I'm a bit old-fashioned, or maybe I've totally got this all out of context, but it's both an interesting and challenging discussion topic.
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TG.

[M.C]

I thought you asked for a pay rise when the organisation you work for is doing well The pay demands seem like madness.

- The Royal College of Nursing is asking for a pay rise of 5% above RPI inflation
- At the time of the RCN ballot result, this equated to a rise of 17.6% using September inflation data

'Using October’s RPI inflation data, this would equate to a pay rise of 19.2% ...would cost around an additional £10 billion'

Obviously they're asking ordinary people (who are also struggling) to pay for this.

[Easy-X]

Unions are paid by their members to represent their interests not the interests of the company or the public. Working as intended.
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[M.C]

[A100man]

[Nobby the Bastard]

The miners strike was in an entirely different decade to the winter of discontent.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[ThunderGuts]

[A100man]

[stinkwheel]

The rail workers strike is more about who's in charge than money. They don't want changes in working practices that are a hangover from the 70's British Rail days that made it easy to skive.

The NHS is more about overwork/understaff than pay.

Not really sure about the Royal Mail one but what I would sya is I thinkthe Mail and rail workers are in a very real and serious danger of striking themselves out of a job. These are both privately run companies now. When they were nationalised they couldn't really fail. The rail franchise holders will simply fold the company if it stops making money. Royal mail are pushing their luck, the lucrative part of the business is parcel delivery and once companies start using a different courier for that to avoid delays due to strikes, they'll be slow to move back again.

I was trying to think of a strike that actually got the strikers what they wanted. Can't think of one offhand. Possibly the Glasgow shipyards "work in" but even that all went tits-up soon after.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Polarbear]

The late 70's and 80's was horrific. Stupidly high wage rises. Stupidly high inflation that served nobody any good. I remember getting a 17% pay rise and thinking - wow. Came back form a trip at seea and it was already eaten away and that time was the start when ship owners started looking at Hng Kong Chinese and Indian crews to save money.

Most people in work today didn't work in that era and won't see the similarities. It doesn't look good, that's for sure.

While nurses will have the goodwill of most of the population the train drivers won't as they are hardly on a crisis level salary. Royal mail will destroy themselves. The only snail mail I get is junk or the odd letter from HMRC. Everything else is email and parcels, well Amazon have their own system and there are plenty of couriers around.

Labour must love being in opposition. Brexit, Covid, Ukraine, Inflation, energy prices, NHS. Jesus, they will need Diane Abbotts magic maths when they get in power.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[M.C]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

[Polarbear]

[Ribenapigeon]

[Diggs]

This is the biggest test the Labour Party has faced for decades IMO. It will determine whether collective bargaining still works, and if it doesn't, then the Labour Party's reason for being doesn't either. Starmer has to come off the fence at some point, as if he doesn't, then he should stand down.

The media has done such a good job of telling the public that the strikes are all about pay that the public don't support them. I wonder who will complain when a drunk is groping their daughter and the only staff on the train is the driver? Likewise when it isn't possible to send a letter and they have to pay for a small parcel instead...

It is a test that as a nation we will probably fail. We'll then become a mini-America and swing to the right. Time to buy some guns...
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[Ribenapigeon]

I would have more sympathy for the nurses if they were taking action for half what they want and for reform of the workplace. The problem is though that nurses themselves are a massive part of the problem when it comes to being over worked, they refuse to see that its the working practices within the NHS which often drive workers away rather than pay. As an old NHS hand once told me...."the NHS is full of cults".

I work in the community-based social service sector and we got 5% this year. Our wages have lagged behind nurse for decades and we have to put up with the shoddy attitudes of our NHS "partners".

[ThunderGuts]

[KiwiBob]

This guy nails it! ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gljtvwhcdhc

[Feasty]

We live in such a capitalist society now, everything revolves around money. The more you have, the more you can do, the more you can influence, the more you can make, and so on.
The middle and lower classes are kept in place with the odd few getting higher due to lucky breaks or higher than average IQ's.

So let's take it a step further, let's make all financial decisions the choice of the earner. Take the NHS, if for example my local hospital has a huge waiting list and 3 days to get an emergency ambulance visit - I'll stop my tax payments towards that thank you very much, and pour it into private care instead.
Private companies pay their staff more, have a better quality of care and provide a better level of service.

Privatisation with regulation and public access to all financial books would surely improve and create a better service that is competitive than waste huge amounts of money on a failing NHS.
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(7 year gap), BMW F650 (Relaxing ride). Aprilia Caponord ETV1000 (Big and bold). Yamaha FZS600 (got me in trouble too quick!).
Current: Yamaha TDM 900 (Comfy, light but big, power when needed).

[Polarbear]

The NHS is the modern day religion. Touch it at you own risk.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[M.C]

[Kawasaki Jimbo]

[colin1]

Nurses want to be paid? I thought they lived on gratitude and us going outside to clap for them from time to time.
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colin1 is officially faster than god

[hellkat]

The amount of planning that goes into ensuring everybody gets through winter is fucking well difficult and complicated enough without this malarkey.

The really underpaid ones are healthcare assistants.
The ones you think are nurses but in fact are little better than minimum-wage slaves doing the duties that nurses are too busy doing paperwork to actually perform.
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Not nearly as interesting in real life.

[chickenstrip]