Railway Strike

[onesea]

What’s your views?

Over worked staff that need more money or The last of the archaic militant unions?

 

 

[billy sugger]

1 hour ago, onesea said:

What’s your views?

Over worked staff that need more money or The last of the archaic militant unions?

 

 

The last bit. People/businesses everywhere are struggling to return to normal life after the pandemic and its effects, many having to close down. Then you had WFH, so hardly anyone was commuting to work so we had clear roads and cleaner air, but that meant rail companies losing money, and a lot of people will have now found alternative means to commute, or still WFH, so less income. So what do the rail unions do? Call for industrial action, further damaging their relationship with the commuters. Who is going to keep using trains if the can't rely on them running? If they win a large pay rise who will pay for it, the commuters, that's who, and we are already struggling to cope with higher energy/food Costs. 

 

To me, they are all too bloody stupid to see the damage they are doing to their industry, and if they loose their jobs it's there own fault

Edited July 27, 2022 by billy sugger
Typo

[Gerontious]

Everybody is being ripped off.. rail users. employees. everyone.

 

meanwhile Billions of pounds are flowing from the pockets of rail users into the accounts of usually foreign, state owned railway companies. And being used to subsidise their own rail services.

 

It would cost me, today £70 to go by train to see my mother who lives 150 miles from me. and would take 4.5hrs. Meanwhile in France I can travel from Calais to Marseilles. for €123. 8hrs. 550 miles.

 

rip off Britain at its best..  and isn't it amazing that the unions are being bashed for fighting on behalf of their members for a fair deal from foreign owners.

 

State owned rail companies in foreign countries buying our UK rail companies is free enterprise. State owned railways in this country is Communism. can you see the disconnect?

 

People who are complaining about powerful unions taking on greedy employers are usually the types who have no union representation in their own industry and so its mostly about jealousy.

 

Ive seen it suggested by this shower of chancers in government that the railway workers might get fired and agency workers brought in.. didn't they create a fuss just a few months ago when a certain ferry company did exactly that? 

 

If staff vote for industrial action and they have a union that can organise that... and its all lawful. then let them do it. that's what I think. cap the profits and cash flowing out of the country. pay our own people a fair wage that keeps up with inflation. not just the rail workers. everyone.

 

in this country?... as if. we seem to have an addiction to being ripped off.

 

we love complaining about it and absolutely hate anyone who might want to fight against it.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Gerontious

[Guest]

@Gerontious has put it far better than I could. 

 

[S-Westerly]

My union is really effective - just ask the poor sods on the P&O Ferries. It's even more useless for deep sea people as how can you organise any kind of industrial action when members are spread across the world and usually on ships of many different nationalities? That said if I was offered 8% over 2 years I'd bite the owner's hands off. 2% in the last 4 years is more like it. Last years was a breathtaking £25.00 a month.

[Bender]

Thing is  network rail is owned by the tax payer. 

 

The unions have been made an offer of 8% plus other bonus plus guarantee no compulsory redundancy and free rail travel. 

 

I wonder how many folk on here would turn down 8% and the rest over 2 years, the cost to every tax payer household I belive for the rail network with regards covid help was £600. 

 

They have been looked after and they won't even put the current offer to the members, not enough folk are using trains now something has to change, its the change the unions don't want. 

[onesea]

8% no redundancy, free rail travel…  Can I have a job please?

[Bender]

3 minutes ago, onesea said:

8% no redundancy, free rail travel…  Can I have a job please?

No because the unions won't offer you it 

[KiwiBob]

7 minutes ago, Bender said:

 

 

The unions have been made an offer of 8% plus other bonus plus guarantee no compulsory redundancy and free rail travel. 

 

Good luck to the RMT I say! .... They have not had a payrise for the last 2 or 3 years and have only been offered 4%. 

 

Network Rail have also threatening to impose compulsory redundancies and 50 percent cuts to maintenance work if the RMT did not withdraw planned strike action.

[Mickly]

1 hour ago, Bender said:

Thing is  network rail is owned by the tax payer. 

 

The unions have been made an offer of 8% plus other bonus plus guarantee no compulsory redundancy and free rail travel. 

 

I wonder how many folk on here would turn down 8% and the rest over 2 years, the cost to every tax payer household I belive for the rail network with regards covid help was £600. 

 

They have been looked after and they won't even put the current offer to the members, not enough folk are using trains now something has to change, its the change the unions don't want. 

Load of bollox, it’s the moneybag owners of the franchise’s who are putting pressure on network rail to reduce the number of people required to run a train, putting passengers at risk. If they’re successful will it go into more investment or lower fares? Like fcuk it will, it’ll fund the huge exec bonuses of the franchises.

If they’re successful in reducing staff on trains where will the people displaced work?? Sweeping platforms on a zero hours contract? After all they haven’t been made redundant just fcuked over. 

[Bender]

1 hour ago, KiwiBob said:

Good luck to the RMT I say! .... They have not had a payrise for the last 2 or 3 years and have only been offered 4%. 

 

Network Rail have also threatening to impose compulsory redundancies and 50 percent cuts to maintenance work if the RMT did not withdraw planned strike action.

It's 8% over 2 yrs ( I'm only going off what's been on radio today) 

 

 

@Mickly so it's not owned by the gov and they've not been offered what's been reported.? 

 

The trains were crap when they were all gov owned, they are still crap now. They just have the added bonus of being ridiculously expensive to boot now. 

 

 

Whats been offered 

 

Over 5% rise for all RMT members and more for those paid under £30,000 - sources close to the employers told Sky News the Network Rail offer was worth up to 10% for the lowest-paid
• A 4% rise on basic pay would be paid in year one, backdated to January, with 2% in year two and a further 2% if modernisation reform milestones are met
• 75% discounted travel for employees and family from January 2023
• Some £650 for each worker as a cash "bonus"
• A further £250 lump sum for those paid under £24,000
• A guarantee of no compulsory redundancies for the two years

 

 

[Bender]

Completely unrelated but Sam tarry Labour  shadow transport minister has been sacked and its nothing to do with joining in with the picket line and doing an interview from it. 

 

 

[Mickly]

11 hours ago, Bender said:

Completely unrelated but Sam tarry Labour  shadow transport minister has been sacked and its nothing to do with joining in with the picket line and doing an interview from it. 

 

 

Should have done what Grunt Shitts has done? Aka fcuk all except snipe from the side lines & refuse to do his job?

Funny that the Government own network rail but refuse to partake in the negotiations?

[onesea]

3 minutes ago, Mickly said:

Should have done what Grunt Shitts has done? Aka fcuk all except snipe from the side lines & refuse to do his job?

Funny that the Government own network rail but refuse to partake in the negotiations?

Maybe they are not cause they don’t see the need to, as I understand it there are 2 things going on.
1) the government don’t want them to have any bigger pay rise.
2) they will be wrapped up in replacing boris to care atm..l

[Fozzie]

In recent years, I've started to understand unions even if I think they are a bit short sighted. 

 

Less people using rail, and going forward working from home will be more popular. So the service will need to shrink. Where will those people go who are made redundant? Not sure, although there is a shortage of workers in general at the moment, probably owing to the fact wages stink. Maybe an opportunity there to fix two problems, although if higher skilled roles like train drivers are lost, things get tricky unless you have enough near retirement to pay off into taking early retirement. 

 

But the big thing that bothers me, is this "whose going to pay for this" mentality towards any organisation that suffers strikes, I see it online all the time. You already do pay for it is the short answer. Businesses will always raise their prices in line with inflation, and we treat that as being fair, if a bit painful during times like this. But when those businesses then don't want to raise their staffs wages in line with inflation, this isn't "buckling up during hard times", it's a business getting more for less out of you. If tomorrow a law was passed that all businesses had to raise their staffs pay in line with inflation, we'd see the issue be dealt with far more aggressively than it is. 

 

 

[MikeHorton]

I think the whole issues would have been with the effective use of diffusion like we use on this forum. The introduction of biscuits to negotiation would have sorted it without a doubt! 

[Bender]

The gov shouldn't be involved, it's a free standing company not the civil service,  they may have a pre tax profit of over a billion but that pales in comparison to the billions given in subsidies. 

 

I'm sure everyone would vote to give all under gov employment directly or in directly a 10% rise but I'm damned sure no one would want the increased taxes to cover it. 

 

I have no issue with them voting on strike, its the union trying to draw the gov into it and not even putting what's been offered to the members that I think smells of militancy. 

 

The rail network cant support what is going to be the new norm. 

 

 

[Gerontious]

Im pretty sure it could.. if the will was there.

 

But of course it isn't.. because, you know. communism.

[KiwiBob]

12 minutes ago, Bender said:

The gov shouldn't be involved, it's a free standing company not the civil service,  they may have a pre tax profit of over a billion but that pales in comparison to the billions given in subsidies. 

 

I'm sure everyone would vote to give all under gov employment directly or in directly a 10% rise but I'm damned sure no one would want the increased taxes to cover it. 

 

I have no issue with them voting on strike, its the union trying to draw the gov into it and not even putting what's been offered to the members that I think smells of militancy. 

 

The rail network cant support what is going to be the new norm. 

 

 

Network Rail is a public sector company! ... Since 2014 Network Rail has been classified as a Government Body!

 

 

[Bender]

44 minutes ago, KiwiBob said:

Network Rail is a public sector company! ... Since 2014 Network Rail has been classified as a Government Body!

 

 

Yup but its not run as civil service, which minister is in charge of it? 

 

It's listed as 

Non-departmental public body (incorporated as a private company limited by guarantee without share capital)

 

Here's the list of directors 

 

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/how-we-work/our-leadership/our-board/

[billy sugger]

Slighy off topic, 

In the late70s early 80s I worked at a engineering firm called  Brown Brothers. We made stuff for the aircraft industry, working to micron tolerances. At the time BOAC was changing, and the industry was suffering as a result. BB offered everyone a payrise, but the union wasn't happy with it so called for Industial action, something I wasn't prepared to do. BB came back with a new offer and a change to the piecework rates, and this was accepted. 3 weeks after the new wage came into affect the toolroom walked out on strike, because the disparity between skilled and semi skilled pay had shrunk. 

Because of lost production some companies (BA, Quantas) took their business elsewhere, and within a year BB shut up shop, putting 112 people on the dole, and it was just shy of me serving 4 years apprenticeship 

Edited July 28, 2022 by billy sugger

[rob m]

Support them totally. Predictably really as I'm a lefty socialist, grew up in a North East mining community in the 70s/80s and saw the effects of the unions being attacked by Herr Thatcher and the devastation of communities following the miners strike. I'm as red as they come and support the unions wholeheartedly. 

 

We live in a different world these days, the country is split by Brexit, an incompetent, self serving, Tory government (I'm flabbergasted that people are still surprised) and a right wing media who are intent in causing division and hatred. That's a lot to go up against for the unions and their members.

 

But the fight goes on. Getting decent pay and conditions is a right and people protesting for the same is also a right in a democracy.

 

Good luck to them. f**k the Tories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeHorton]

31 minutes ago, billy sugger said:

Slighy off topic, 

In the late70s early 80s I worked at a engineering firm called  Brown Brothers. We made stuff for the aircraft industry, working to micron tolerances. At the time BOAC was changing, and the industry was suffering as a result. BB offered everyone a payrise, but the union wasn't happy with it so called for Industial action, something I wasn't prepared to do. BB came back with a new offer and a change to the piecework rates, and this was accepted. 3 weeks after the new wage came into affect the toolroom walked out on strike, because the disparity between skilled and semi skilled pay had shrunk. 

Because of lost production some companies (BA, Quantas) took their business elsewhere, and within a year BB shut up shop, putting 112 people on the dole, and it was just shy of me serving 4 years apprenticeship 

Feel your pain there early 90s I went through 4 companies in my apprenticeship due to firms to the wall. My 1st job was my favorite I maintain I'd still be there today Simon Engineering we used to build hydraulic fire platforms it was my dream job great company to work for you only got a job there if someone died or retired. Gentlemens hours on a Friday too! 

[rob m]

... and let's be honest here. Railway workers striking for more pay isn't the most anger invoking thing for the public these days, it's this:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/jul/28/shell-profits-record-households-cost-of-living-us-economy-gdp-business-live?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-62e2459d8f081e9f3bd21d82#block-62e2459d8f081e9f3bd21d82

 

Supported by the Tory government who are shit scared to impose sanctions on big business and banks as they donate massively to the Tory party.

 

If this was a third world country, we'd be screaming corruption. Instead, we're sucking it up and the more we do,  they'll inflict more damage.

Edited July 28, 2022 by rob m

[Bender]

36 minutes ago, rob m said:

 

 

Good luck to them. f**k the Tories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There in lies the problem its the same with the union demands, its as much political, something stammer doesn't want to be associated with or he wouldn't have sacked his shadow minister for holding an un authorised media interview.