Rail strikes discussion

[dk1]

I need to make this clear. There are NO plans to change the 35h working week in Network Rail.
Anyone who claims otherwise is misinformed at best.

Thank goodness for that. Wasn’t it that earlier document that brought this subject up? I couldn’t imagine something like that ever being proposed.

 

[Wolfie]

On GB News now, a private barrister has said those publicly funded barristers who have voted for industrial action have been offered a 15% rise but are wanting a 25% pay rise.
So if there is enough money in the Treasury for a 15% pay rise, you see where the RMT are coming from when the purse strings have been closed by Sunak and co for the railway workers.

Take a look at how much their rates were previously cut!

When was their last pay rise? If they've had pay freezes for 10 years then a 25% pay rise now would be less than 2% every year for the last 10.

How many people are affected? And how much would the pay rise cost? I would guess rail workers make up a far greater number of people than publicly funded barristers.

Didn't I also read something about them having to do unpaid work due to government cuts to legal aid?

Be careful what comparisons you make.

Exactly.

Barristers are paid fees, not salaries, as they're not employed by the Court or another government body. This is a rather different situation from someone who is employed by a TOC or Network Rail.

An independent criminal legal aid review gave the government a recommendation to increase fees by 15%. This has as yet not been offered. Since 2004 the budget for legal aid has been reduced in real terms by around 45%.

Yup.

 

[fkofilee]

The incident lists have started making their way around social media.

Where would 1 find these - I am intrigued...

 

[Wolfie]

I can not understand why the Unions have to be affiliated with Labour (or any party) at this point in history. Surely, they should be independent and want what is only good for their members? As an outsider, Unions look like a Ponzi scheme with mob mentality; if you're not for unions, you're Tory (even if you vote Green, etc) and will be treated as such- and as such, everyone joins to not be an outcast. Sure, I know Unions have good points, and help individual members, but how many pay in week on week and never make use of them? Sorry if it's ignorance of my part, but that's how I see it.

Well one likely reason is the level of billionaire and big industry funding to the Conservative party to advance their interests.

As an employee I certainly prefer pay rises to bonuses. If you get a £500 pay rise, you get the extra £500 next year and every subsequent year as well, on top of any future pay rise. If you get a £1000 bonus one year then that's good but next year you might get no bonus.

In the Civil Service a bonus scheme was set up (which the Daily Heil et al regularly rant about). Not only is the level of bonus pathetic but it was funded by taking money from the existing pay pot.

 

[Frankfurt]

Where would 1 find these - I am intrigued...

https://twitter.com/nicholasdhair?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

 

[philosopher]

Yes, undoubtedly the strikes will be damaging to the wider economy. I just don’t think the pressure will be there from the wider public for a resolution. Prior to the growth in WFH, a strike, particularly in London, would be a nightmare. Now, for many, just an excuse to avoid the commute and the office. Aware that not everyone can WFH of course.

There will still be pressure for a resolution, however instead of coming from the public, it will come more from businesses, such as retail, hospitality and cultural attractions who have many customers who use the railways. This partly because the RMT is targetting leisure travellers, hence the Saturday strike and partly because greater WFH means they lose customers who may have previously endured a trip into the office when there was a strike.

If there is a prolonged campaign of strikes, I would not be surprised if some businesses start asking for financial assistance from the government

 

[DelayRepay]

Is LNR's Twitter header being deliberately provocative today?



(Image shows a bunch of people with the caption 'Pay Less, Do More')

 

[fkofilee]

https://twitter.com/nicholasdhair?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Well thats interesting... WRT and a a train dispatch that went wrong? Christ...

 

[GB]

https://twitter.com/nicholasdhair?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Happens any day of the week and means nothing in respect of the strikes and who is working.

 

[Wolfie]

Please don't use my industry as ammunition for your quite obvious anti-Union diatribes.

The fact many of my colleagues in the NHS are too gutless to stand up for their professions and demand reasonable pay rises is why my profession (nursing) has seen its pay effectively cut by a fifth since 2010. I'm sure the fact we currently have approximately 40k vacancies for Registered Nurses (with all the impacts such shortages have on patient care) is no coincidence...

As multiple people have said on here, it's not a race to the bottom. From the financial illiteracy that was 'austerity', the idiocy of Brexit, through to the mismanagement of public funds that has led to Tory donors being given preferential contracts during Covid and £11Bn being written-off by the Treasury, this government has done all it can to attack the less well-off and feather the nests of the rich. Industrial Action was always going to be the result of such politically-driven assaults on the population.

Solidarity with all those on strike today.

I agree much of what you write. It's no different in the Civil Service.

 

[theking]

The incident lists have started making their way around social media.

No surprise with the calibre of the strike breakers they had on some panels.

Dread to think what would happen if there's a major incident

 

[apinnard]

Well thats interesting... WRT and a a train dispatch that went wrong? Christ...

Any idea what happened at Shenfield with the two freights?

 

[HL7]

Indeed. Many stoked up to resent 'foreigners/EU' by a MSM controlled by those with an interest in seeing the UK outside of the EU.

'Disaster Capitalism' at its most odious.

Exactly. They had working class people blaming immigrants and asylum seekers for all of the problems in their lives with the magical bullet of brexit promised as the remedy.

Now they’ve got them all fighting each other to see who can claim to have went the longest without a pay rise and who has the worst terms and conditions, wearing them as if they’re some sort of badge of honour.

Its like they’re suffering from a collective Stockholm syndrome, all parroting the same old rubbish and weaponising nurses and teachers pay as if its reason not to give pay rises to anybody rather than fighting to give nurses and teachers what they deserve.

 

[Wolfie]

As long as it doesn’t increase inflation, say 2-3%, then I agree.

Haha... I hope that you never find yourself facing criminal charges and needing a defence lawyer because increasingly there won't be any.

 

[Agent_Squash]

I've just caught up with some of the interviews - including Kay Burley's rather pathetic attempt at trying to make the RMT out as violent.

Also heard Grant Shapps on Today spouting complete rubbish about the strikes. As a passenger, I wasn't convinced strike action was the right route until the media spin machine span up - and how much vitriol it has targeted towards rail workers (including those 'overpaid' drivers who aren't even striking!)

I attended a speech back when Chris Heaton-Harris was rail minister in November and I guess it was coming all along. He was very clear that the goal of the government was to push through modernisation and it seemed like they would go about it through any means necessary - the contempt he showed for staff (that they should be grateful they weren't on furlough) still shines through today.

Personally, I wasn't convinced because I'm worried about how the government will respond - they're turning it into a wedge issue and I'm genuinely worried that the railway won't recover. The motives are absolutely right - pay does need to go up, and while there are good reasons for modernisation, I sorely hope there will be the passengers to use it in the end.

 

[Wolfie]

Drivers aren’t on strike.

I thought that, albeit a small number, some drivers were represented by RMT, or is that only on the tube?

 

[Ashley Hill]

Happens any day of the week and means nothing in respect of the strikes and who is working.

If a signaller sets the wrong route they get a visit from a manager. If a manager sets the wrong route who visits them or do they self flagellate?

 

[DorkingMain]

The days of an ever-expanding railway are over. If the unions are not careful, this strike will hasten a big contraction of the system and services and could in a worse case scenario bring about its virtual demise.

The NUM now has fewer than 100 members to represent a workforce of near zero. This could easily be the future of our railways, with the only stations with any sort of service being on our voluntee-run heritage lines.

The pre-COVID world has gone and is as much a part of history as the Victorian age. The railway network needs a drastic programme of cost-reductions using as much technology as possible to reduce costs and reflect the cold economic reality of the new world.

Tell us what else you read about in The Telegraph this morning.

The railway has always used "as much technology as possible to reduce costs" - but most new technology, on the scale of infrastructure like the railway, requires massive expenditure to implement. Look at the countless cancelled electrification programs. Do you have any examples of technology the unions are holding back?

The railway isn't going anywhere in terms of "contraction of the system" - passenger numbers are not miles from where they were pre-COVID, and I suspect the only reason they haven't sprung back further is that the level of capacity actually provided is now suppressing demand (in terms of training backlogs and stock shortages) - fail to see how "the unions" are at fault with that.

There is no "new world" - these are downgrades that this government have wanted long before someone ate a bat in Wuhan. COVID and recent decline has just proven a convenient excuse to implement them. I also enjoy your pejorative comparison to the Victorian age, as if that wasn't the period where railways expanded and improved as rapidly as they ever have at any point in history.

 

[Wolfie]

Yes, the unions don't like dealing with 13 tocs which makes things awkward for them, but expect the government to negotiate with 4 different unions whose aims can be quite different (as they tend represent mainly high or low earning people) Those 4 unions like to work independently so that once one agrees a deal, the next one demands that settlement plus some more. Unions representing low paid workers aren't really keen on fixed percentages rather want a cash amount, those representing say drivers want a percentage increase.

It is no different in other fields. There are three (possibly four as Unite are sort of involved) unions covering the civil service.

 

[Agent_Squash]

The pre-COVID world has gone and is as much a part of history as the Victorian age. The railway network needs a drastic programme of cost-reductions using as much technology as possible to reduce costs and reflect the cold economic reality of the new world.

What cost reductions? You wonder how mainland Europe is surviving without cutting back services...

The Government want to get one over on the RMT. They're still sore from the DOO strikes.

 

[centro-323]

I thought that, albeit a small number, some drivers were represented by RMT, or is that only on the tube?

The number is small enough that it's very fair to say 'Drivers aren't on strike' (yet)

 

[175001]

Also heard Grant Shapps on Today spouting complete rubbish about the strikes. As a passenger, I wasn't convinced strike action was the right route until the media spin machine span up - and how much vitriol it has targeted towards rail workers (including those 'overpaid' drivers who aren't even striking!)

This! Thank you!

Its the right wing media machine trying to stoke division YET again between us all.

 

[DorkingMain]

While the railway is massively subsidised by taxpayers you better expect the population to have a view.

Do you think public transport needing to be subsidised by taxpayers is a new thing?

 

[adc82140]

Given that there is legislation with respect to the maximum number of individuals there can be on a picket line that is an utterly asinine suggestion.

I explained further upthread (I know it's easy to lose stuff in a busy discussion like this) that I'm aware of the rules regarding the maximum size of picket and I believe them to be wrong. It's the right (and I would argue duty) of those on strike to picket, and restrictions on numbers is an underhand way of the government trying to quieten the unions. I say this as someone who sits centre right, politically.

 

[GB]

If a signaller sets the wrong route they get a visit from a manager. If a manager sets the wrong route who visits them or do they self flagellate?

Why have you assumed it was a manager and not a non union signaller?

 

[DorkingMain]

Why have you assumed it was a manager and not a non union signaller?

Entirely possible but also unlikely - why would a non-union signaller who does the job every day suddenly make that many mistakes, on a day where far fewer trains are running?

 

[gazr]

I also enjoy your pejorative comparison to the Victorian age, as if that wasn't the period where railways expanded and improved as rapidly as they ever have at any point in history.

Maybe the expansion was due to cheap labour, lack of health & safety and all the costs that come with that, etc. Also, a living wage was not inferred to mean having subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and 5 cups of lattes from Starbucks a week, etc?

 

[Need2]

Haha... I hope that you never find yourself facing criminal charges and needing a defence lawyer because increasingly there won't be any.

I refer you to my later post.
(Hint: I was being sarcastic)
But while on the subject you agree to a barrister getting 15% but railway workers………….

 

[Wolfie]

The number is small enough that it's very fair to say 'Drivers aren't on strike' (yet)

Ok, TY.

Do you think public transport needing to be subsidised by taxpayers is a new thing?

Absolutely not, but those paying are entitled to take a view.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Maybe the expansion was due to cheap labour, lack of health & safety and all the costs that come with that, etc. Also, a living wage was not inferred to mean having subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and 5 cups of lattes from Starbucks a week, etc?

Do you subscribe to these luxuries? A job is a means to an end - believe it or not, most people agree that fellow humans should have the right to treat themselves now and then.

Worrying about electricity bills shouldn’t be a thing in modern society.