>RMT’s Mick Lynch asked ‘How can you justify this?’
Because strikes aren’t meant to be convenient for people. They’re meant to be the exact opposite.
This hardly seems like a mind-boggling concept.
How about the BBC report on the £220million, defrauded from the government and taxpayer, by the Tory peer, Michelle Mone?
Staff are getting railed. No one would accept their offer and shouldn’t expect others to have to either
ITS SIMPLE! the tories made it illegal to work for free, so they have to not work. its not the strikers fault its the govs.
The dates of the strikes are the same dates when services are usually severely reduced anyways.
How can bosses justify cutting railworkers wages again, despite making record profits and massive executive pays?
Like the radio one broadcast earlier. ‘govt accuses RMT of not caring about ruining the public’s Christmas’
Yaaaaa we will just offer them a pay cut and emotionally blackmail at the same time. Scream weak and ‘look over there, a bad guy that isn’t us’
*Winning*
The BBC are incredibly anti-union in their reporting and commentary. Always have been.
Unless of course it’s BBC journalists who go on strike.
This is like the 4th or 5th ‘this is all Lynch’s fault’ article I’ve seen upvoted here with every single comment calling out the article and headline as wrong and intentionally so.
Very odd, almost like a narrative is being pushed.
Call the strikes off on Christmas. And on New Year. And on Easter. And on bank holidays. And…
Notice how they called them off for the Queen. It’s not often that monarchs die.
The UK media is institutional bias against trade unions. The whole reporting of this dispute presumes that the union is in the wrong.
Why aren’t they hounded Network Rail or government ministers, asking them to justify their shitty offers?
Same question fielded to the DFT and Network rail bosses please
Gotta love how they’ll never ask a Tory politician questions like these.
BBC bias against unions is infuriating. Today’s TV news output on the matter is so dispiriting. They never ask profiteers if perhaps they could scale back the dividends to maintain living wages and affordable fares.
I quite like him, defends himself quite well while b.s is thrown at him.
It will mess up my plans. They get paid more than I do. Trains are shit and over priced (relatively).
But you should look at exec bonuses, dividends & reinvestment before looking at cutting workers living standards as a matter of morals.
TBF, we only just got a transport secretary that will actually talk to the unions.
How about “because they have a mandate to strike of 91%?” Far more than our current government has. Or the one before that. Or the one before that.
The unions aren’t at fault for the government stalling. Strikes and negotiations started months ago.
If rail strikes will be so disruptive maybe rail workers are undervalued?
They should be asking that question to the government and the rail companies
Mick Lynch doesn’t have to justify it. They ballot their members on what to do and what to accept and what not to accept. So he’s doing what his members tell him to, which is how unions work. Mick Lynch isn’t going on strike.
I haven’t seen a single strike that I am not in favor of yet this year. You spend 12 years telling people that they should expect to prop up the economy by taking real terms pay cuts then eventually the goodwill runs out.
Government stopped rail leaders making an offer
They want it to continue
They think people will be angry at Unions not them
They’re wrong
It’s pathetic how the media try to portray striking workers as complete villains…….’won’t someone think of the children’s Christmas?’ type of shit…..fuck off.
Why don’t we change the narrative “Train companies refuse to pay staff reasonable wages leading to further strikes”.
If you don’t pay someone what they price their goods or service that you want to receive, then you probably aren’t going to receive it. I can’t go into tesco, pick up something worth a tenner, give them a fiver and say ‘How can you justify this?!’ when they refuse to make the sale and don’t give me what I want.
they can’t next door but one to me is on 58k as a driver
30m a day to train franchises for not operating. What other private sector businesses can socialise losses?
‘How can you justify this?’
Because his loyalty is to the union members. That is who he works for and represents. Not inconvenienced train passengers. Its very simple.
They are really pushing the propaganda hard with this one.
Railway worker and RMT member here. The media are all focusing on the pay rise element. This is a minor part of the disagreement. I won’t quote it here as I don’t want to preach, but I would recommend people read the entire offer as put forward and see what is being taken away for the sake of the pay rise and ask yourself if you would be happy losing those rights/protections in exchange for this? The money part is actually largely irrelevant, it’s the conditions we’d be agreeing to if we accept it that’s the main issue in dispute.
I appreciate it is a contentious issue for everybody, especially those of us taking the industrial action as believe it or not, most of us aren’t the militant anti government heavies the media make us out to be and we want it resolved ASAP, but we shouldn’t have to sell our souls to do it
One thing is for very certain, the aged tory voters who wholeheartedly support the government in this rail dispute, will be the first ones moaning and groaning, when the ticket offices are no longer available, and they haven’t got a fucking clue how to order one on-line.
One thing tory voters are very good at is voting against their very own interests. Then moaning about it with venom, when the consequences of their actions become apparent thereafter.
Fuck christmas.. there are more important things. That what he should have said.
“rail companies were planning to impose contractual changes on their workers in December”
Has the BBC had a headline along the lines of… “Why are rail companies willing to ruin Christmas for everyone?”
Strikes are supposed to be inconvenient, I fully support them.
As a network rail employee, I see it from our side. We are being asked to forfeit our terms and conditions to fund a payrise.
Network rail said it has to make £400m in savings by changing our ts and cs to fund a payrise. Yet the strikes have cost them £360m to date. Another 2 strike days pushes this to £420m. So if the had just given us a decent payrise then they would have made their savings anyway.
There is clearly plenty of money to give the payrise if they can afford to keep coming out with pathetic offers and costing themselves money.
The justification for the strikes is clear. The money is there but they don’t want to give it to the boots on the ground workers who are out in all weather at all times of the day and night keeping the network moving.
Funny how the media narrative is always to ask the “greedy workers” to justify their demands (even though what the RMT is asking for is a real terms pay CUT that sees them HELP the rail companies out by asking for less than inflation).
Meanwhile we don’t get a narrative of greedy corporates or greedy CEOs having to justify themselves even though corporate payouts and values are at 70-year record levels and CEO pay exceeds inflation year after year.
You have to be a selfish dolt to blame a striking union. You are not _owed_ somebody else working, especially since, unfortunately, our rail is system is largely privately owned by foreign companies.
This is the only means they have to enact change, and ours is to listen and vote. And I’m saying this as someone who has failed to make a simple and pleasant cross country journey in almost a decade thanks to understaffing, overcrowding and cancellations- someone who’s missed a couple of Christmas days. Nobody’s job is above anybody else’s. Imagine half a country of seething idiots demanded you do your office job on a day you felt sick and had had your pay slashed.
I feel there is a danger you can piss the public off too much with strikes they lose sympathy for reasons behind it. Lots of the public who use trains, who work in other sectors, who maybe aren’t receiving pay rises also, are having their weekend plans, commutes, ruined by these strikes.
I get that’s the reason behind the strikes but I feel it’s a fine line being run and risk damaging the public’s view of unions
Just hastening the era of driverless trains. Much easier to achieve than driverless cars.
40 comments
>RMT’s Mick Lynch asked ‘How can you justify this?’
Because strikes aren’t meant to be convenient for people. They’re meant to be the exact opposite.
This hardly seems like a mind-boggling concept.
How about the BBC report on the £220million, defrauded from the government and taxpayer, by the Tory peer, Michelle Mone?
Staff are getting railed. No one would accept their offer and shouldn’t expect others to have to either
ITS SIMPLE! the tories made it illegal to work for free, so they have to not work. its not the strikers fault its the govs.
The dates of the strikes are the same dates when services are usually severely reduced anyways.
How can bosses justify cutting railworkers wages again, despite making record profits and massive executive pays?
Like the radio one broadcast earlier. ‘govt accuses RMT of not caring about ruining the public’s Christmas’
Yaaaaa we will just offer them a pay cut and emotionally blackmail at the same time. Scream weak and ‘look over there, a bad guy that isn’t us’
*Winning*
The BBC are incredibly anti-union in their reporting and commentary. Always have been.
Unless of course it’s BBC journalists who go on strike.
This is like the 4th or 5th ‘this is all Lynch’s fault’ article I’ve seen upvoted here with every single comment calling out the article and headline as wrong and intentionally so.
Very odd, almost like a narrative is being pushed.
Call the strikes off on Christmas. And on New Year. And on Easter. And on bank holidays. And…
Notice how they called them off for the Queen. It’s not often that monarchs die.
The UK media is institutional bias against trade unions. The whole reporting of this dispute presumes that the union is in the wrong.
Why aren’t they hounded Network Rail or government ministers, asking them to justify their shitty offers?
Same question fielded to the DFT and Network rail bosses please
Gotta love how they’ll never ask a Tory politician questions like these.
BBC bias against unions is infuriating. Today’s TV news output on the matter is so dispiriting. They never ask profiteers if perhaps they could scale back the dividends to maintain living wages and affordable fares.
I quite like him, defends himself quite well while b.s is thrown at him.
It will mess up my plans. They get paid more than I do. Trains are shit and over priced (relatively).
But you should look at exec bonuses, dividends & reinvestment before looking at cutting workers living standards as a matter of morals.
TBF, we only just got a transport secretary that will actually talk to the unions.
How about “because they have a mandate to strike of 91%?” Far more than our current government has. Or the one before that. Or the one before that.
The unions aren’t at fault for the government stalling. Strikes and negotiations started months ago.
If rail strikes will be so disruptive maybe rail workers are undervalued?
They should be asking that question to the government and the rail companies
Mick Lynch doesn’t have to justify it. They ballot their members on what to do and what to accept and what not to accept. So he’s doing what his members tell him to, which is how unions work. Mick Lynch isn’t going on strike.
I haven’t seen a single strike that I am not in favor of yet this year. You spend 12 years telling people that they should expect to prop up the economy by taking real terms pay cuts then eventually the goodwill runs out.
Government stopped rail leaders making an offer
They want it to continue
They think people will be angry at Unions not them
They’re wrong
It’s pathetic how the media try to portray striking workers as complete villains…….’won’t someone think of the children’s Christmas?’ type of shit…..fuck off.
Why don’t we change the narrative “Train companies refuse to pay staff reasonable wages leading to further strikes”.
If you don’t pay someone what they price their goods or service that you want to receive, then you probably aren’t going to receive it. I can’t go into tesco, pick up something worth a tenner, give them a fiver and say ‘How can you justify this?!’ when they refuse to make the sale and don’t give me what I want.
they can’t next door but one to me is on 58k as a driver
30m a day to train franchises for not operating. What other private sector businesses can socialise losses?
‘How can you justify this?’
Because his loyalty is to the union members. That is who he works for and represents. Not inconvenienced train passengers. Its very simple.
They are really pushing the propaganda hard with this one.
Railway worker and RMT member here. The media are all focusing on the pay rise element. This is a minor part of the disagreement. I won’t quote it here as I don’t want to preach, but I would recommend people read the entire offer as put forward and see what is being taken away for the sake of the pay rise and ask yourself if you would be happy losing those rights/protections in exchange for this? The money part is actually largely irrelevant, it’s the conditions we’d be agreeing to if we accept it that’s the main issue in dispute.
I appreciate it is a contentious issue for everybody, especially those of us taking the industrial action as believe it or not, most of us aren’t the militant anti government heavies the media make us out to be and we want it resolved ASAP, but we shouldn’t have to sell our souls to do it
One thing is for very certain, the aged tory voters who wholeheartedly support the government in this rail dispute, will be the first ones moaning and groaning, when the ticket offices are no longer available, and they haven’t got a fucking clue how to order one on-line.
One thing tory voters are very good at is voting against their very own interests. Then moaning about it with venom, when the consequences of their actions become apparent thereafter.
Fuck christmas.. there are more important things. That what he should have said.
“rail companies were planning to impose contractual changes on their workers in December”
Has the BBC had a headline along the lines of… “Why are rail companies willing to ruin Christmas for everyone?”
Strikes are supposed to be inconvenient, I fully support them.
As a network rail employee, I see it from our side. We are being asked to forfeit our terms and conditions to fund a payrise.
Network rail said it has to make £400m in savings by changing our ts and cs to fund a payrise. Yet the strikes have cost them £360m to date. Another 2 strike days pushes this to £420m. So if the had just given us a decent payrise then they would have made their savings anyway.
There is clearly plenty of money to give the payrise if they can afford to keep coming out with pathetic offers and costing themselves money.
The justification for the strikes is clear. The money is there but they don’t want to give it to the boots on the ground workers who are out in all weather at all times of the day and night keeping the network moving.
Funny how the media narrative is always to ask the “greedy workers” to justify their demands (even though what the RMT is asking for is a real terms pay CUT that sees them HELP the rail companies out by asking for less than inflation).
Meanwhile we don’t get a narrative of greedy corporates or greedy CEOs having to justify themselves even though corporate payouts and values are at 70-year record levels and CEO pay exceeds inflation year after year.
You have to be a selfish dolt to blame a striking union. You are not _owed_ somebody else working, especially since, unfortunately, our rail is system is largely privately owned by foreign companies.
This is the only means they have to enact change, and ours is to listen and vote. And I’m saying this as someone who has failed to make a simple and pleasant cross country journey in almost a decade thanks to understaffing, overcrowding and cancellations- someone who’s missed a couple of Christmas days. Nobody’s job is above anybody else’s. Imagine half a country of seething idiots demanded you do your office job on a day you felt sick and had had your pay slashed.
I feel there is a danger you can piss the public off too much with strikes they lose sympathy for reasons behind it. Lots of the public who use trains, who work in other sectors, who maybe aren’t receiving pay rises also, are having their weekend plans, commutes, ruined by these strikes.
I get that’s the reason behind the strikes but I feel it’s a fine line being run and risk damaging the public’s view of unions
Just hastening the era of driverless trains. Much easier to achieve than driverless cars.