>Mr Lynch said there was also a plan to close every ticket office in Britain.
I doubt it, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Far too many people sit around ticket offices having a fucking chat, just to dissuade people from jumping gates, or to press their badge against the disabled gate to let someone with a pushchair through.
My local train station has 2 people in the ticket office, and 2 people permanently stood by the exit gates, who do fuck all.
The sooner we get rid of the useless jobs and start automating, the better.
Wonder if this is like Unite over Arriva, not even putting the upgraded offer to the members.
I’ve been a member of unions, I’ve been on strike (when the Labour government stole the pensions from civil servants and reduced the checks required for child care providers). I’ve also seen unions refuse to support over serious issues.
Over time I’ve come to realise that unions are often only in it for themselves, certainly their leaderships.
>The transport secretary has denied the government intervened in the dispute, saying “no minsters have ever been involved directly in these strike negotiations” and _only the employers and union could reach an agreement_.
>The RMT has called for a pay rise of at least 7% to keep up with the cost of living.
>
>_But ministers have ruled out increases in line with inflation_, which the Bank of England forecast would top 11% in the autumn.
Well, it’s one or the other, but it can’t be both.
Imagine my shock……
Andrew Roden, deputy editor of Modern Railway magazine speaking on BBC5live today:
“If you are a train company and you need to change something like an engine on a diesel train, you have to get permission from the government, through the department of transport, to get the funding to do that. So there is no way anywhere where the train companies can negotiate freely with the unions and find out what is possible unless the government gives them permission to do so. The government is absolutely in control of the railways and if the government wanted to avert this dispute, if it wanted to give the train companies freedom to negotiate it could have done so a very, very long time ago.
Q: Grant Shapps said there is effectively an existential threat to the railways because people have changed how they are using them… people are staying at home, numbers indicate more use at weekends. Is it such a fundamental threat to the railways as he points out?
ARE : Only because the government says it is. The government wants to cut funding to the national rail network by about 2 billion quid, huge cuts planned for TFL. He doesn’t have to do this. Now passenger numbers are recovering, it is mostly leisure though, but they are recovering. We need a strong rail network to get people out of their cars, we need rail to carry more freight. If it’s an existential crisis it’s one that the government decided exists. Not one that necessarily has to be the case. It’s a political calculation.
Q: what about his [Shapps] point in the commons today about the inflexibility of the system, and he quoted the voluntary working on a Sunday that’s been in place since 1919?
AR: Yeah, there’s certainly working practices that if you were starting an organisation with a blank sheet of paper you wouldn’t even think of looking at. There are certainly technological developments using technology to measure the state of the infrastructure, that are going to require fewer workers on the track, which from a safety point of view is a good thing because the fewer workers you have on the track the less chances you have of anyone getting hit. This is not black and white on either side, there are certainly working practices that need to change.
Equally what we are hearing from rail staff is that they are desperately concerned about their job security. As a very local example from here, down in far west Cornwall, 3 single boxes are going to close with some resignslling. If I were a signaller, I’d be terrified about what was going to happen to my job. There are legitimate concerns from the unions, there’s a legitimate drive from the government and parts of the rail industry to modernise some working practices. What hasn’t happened, as far as we are told, is that the rail companies and network rail have been given the freedom to actually negotiate meaningfully and come up with something that works.
Q: So it’s one thing to have a pay dispute, you are arguing that the government are holding the levers, but what about modernisation? Is that something in your eyes that the government would determine or would it be down to network rail themselves to make those decisions?
AR: If you take modernisation in the round looking at network rail and the train companies, yesh there’s loads of things that you can do that can run the railways more efficiently… new signalling system…trains are becoming smarter, maintenance is becoming smarter, you are able to identify the state of a bridge or a viaduct, or an overhead line mass… so you can intervene when it’s needed rather than taking an educated guess or doing things on a time based basis.
These things are happening now and they are going to continue to keep happening and the pace of technological change will accelerate. I don’t think there’s any question about that, it’s how you manage it. And if there are going to be reductions in the workforce and I think there probably will be overtime, how you do that fairly.
Q: Yeah and Mick Lynch referred to that today, that he’s had no guaranties that there would be any forced or compulsory redundancies, which was one of the issues today as well as the all the pay.
Hold on a sec. Their median wage is 45k and they’re all striking. Is this a joke?
Divide and conquer once again
The Tories are showing more and more traits of the American Republican party. Including the low IQ’s
8 comments
>Mr Lynch said there was also a plan to close every ticket office in Britain.
I doubt it, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Far too many people sit around ticket offices having a fucking chat, just to dissuade people from jumping gates, or to press their badge against the disabled gate to let someone with a pushchair through.
My local train station has 2 people in the ticket office, and 2 people permanently stood by the exit gates, who do fuck all.
The sooner we get rid of the useless jobs and start automating, the better.
Wonder if this is like Unite over Arriva, not even putting the upgraded offer to the members.
I’ve been a member of unions, I’ve been on strike (when the Labour government stole the pensions from civil servants and reduced the checks required for child care providers). I’ve also seen unions refuse to support over serious issues.
Over time I’ve come to realise that unions are often only in it for themselves, certainly their leaderships.
>The transport secretary has denied the government intervened in the dispute, saying “no minsters have ever been involved directly in these strike negotiations” and _only the employers and union could reach an agreement_.
>The RMT has called for a pay rise of at least 7% to keep up with the cost of living.
>
>_But ministers have ruled out increases in line with inflation_, which the Bank of England forecast would top 11% in the autumn.
Well, it’s one or the other, but it can’t be both.
Imagine my shock……
Andrew Roden, deputy editor of Modern Railway magazine speaking on BBC5live today:
“If you are a train company and you need to change something like an engine on a diesel train, you have to get permission from the government, through the department of transport, to get the funding to do that. So there is no way anywhere where the train companies can negotiate freely with the unions and find out what is possible unless the government gives them permission to do so. The government is absolutely in control of the railways and if the government wanted to avert this dispute, if it wanted to give the train companies freedom to negotiate it could have done so a very, very long time ago.
Q: Grant Shapps said there is effectively an existential threat to the railways because people have changed how they are using them… people are staying at home, numbers indicate more use at weekends. Is it such a fundamental threat to the railways as he points out?
ARE : Only because the government says it is. The government wants to cut funding to the national rail network by about 2 billion quid, huge cuts planned for TFL. He doesn’t have to do this. Now passenger numbers are recovering, it is mostly leisure though, but they are recovering. We need a strong rail network to get people out of their cars, we need rail to carry more freight. If it’s an existential crisis it’s one that the government decided exists. Not one that necessarily has to be the case. It’s a political calculation.
Q: what about his [Shapps] point in the commons today about the inflexibility of the system, and he quoted the voluntary working on a Sunday that’s been in place since 1919?
AR: Yeah, there’s certainly working practices that if you were starting an organisation with a blank sheet of paper you wouldn’t even think of looking at. There are certainly technological developments using technology to measure the state of the infrastructure, that are going to require fewer workers on the track, which from a safety point of view is a good thing because the fewer workers you have on the track the less chances you have of anyone getting hit. This is not black and white on either side, there are certainly working practices that need to change.
Equally what we are hearing from rail staff is that they are desperately concerned about their job security. As a very local example from here, down in far west Cornwall, 3 single boxes are going to close with some resignslling. If I were a signaller, I’d be terrified about what was going to happen to my job. There are legitimate concerns from the unions, there’s a legitimate drive from the government and parts of the rail industry to modernise some working practices. What hasn’t happened, as far as we are told, is that the rail companies and network rail have been given the freedom to actually negotiate meaningfully and come up with something that works.
Q: So it’s one thing to have a pay dispute, you are arguing that the government are holding the levers, but what about modernisation? Is that something in your eyes that the government would determine or would it be down to network rail themselves to make those decisions?
AR: If you take modernisation in the round looking at network rail and the train companies, yesh there’s loads of things that you can do that can run the railways more efficiently… new signalling system…trains are becoming smarter, maintenance is becoming smarter, you are able to identify the state of a bridge or a viaduct, or an overhead line mass… so you can intervene when it’s needed rather than taking an educated guess or doing things on a time based basis.
These things are happening now and they are going to continue to keep happening and the pace of technological change will accelerate. I don’t think there’s any question about that, it’s how you manage it. And if there are going to be reductions in the workforce and I think there probably will be overtime, how you do that fairly.
Q: Yeah and Mick Lynch referred to that today, that he’s had no guaranties that there would be any forced or compulsory redundancies, which was one of the issues today as well as the all the pay.
Hold on a sec. Their median wage is 45k and they’re all striking. Is this a joke?
Divide and conquer once again
The Tories are showing more and more traits of the American Republican party. Including the low IQ’s