Tube driver strike

[Chillaxed]

Is anyone more informed and eloquent than me able to put forward an argument to justify these guys going on strike again, on Boxing Day again?

[Lowlander]

If you're a tube driver, and you pay your union dues in order to safeguard and increase your benefits, Bob Crow is delivering fantastic value for money.

Not that I'm a fan...it's just an observation

[maxxi]

It's quite simple. None of the tube drivers wants to work on Boxing Day and they earn so much money the rest of the year that they can afford to skip work on this one day - oh, and call it a strike to avoid getting the sack.

All they have to do is find a reason every year.

This year's reason is brilliant - they want to choose whether to work on Boxing Day, kind of a warped Catch-22, "We won't work on Boxing Day because we want the right to choose not work on Boxing Day".

It's happened so often that it's become a kind of Yuletide tradition now.

[KidKruger]

Weak British working attitude, laziest country I've worked in.

No shame and surreal viewpoint on what side their bread's buttered.

[Chillaxed]

You're right Maxxi, it's happened so often that I just get on and deal with it now, so I'd encourage LU to tell Bob where to stick it.

[titch juicy]

they're striking because they want more money to work on boxing day, a bank holiday

[Marmora Man]

This is an ASLEF strike not RMT - so Bob Crow not at the helm for this strike - unusually.

[malumbu]

Too many ignorant comments to deal with here, but I'll try...

Go back a 100 years and manual workers were treated appallingly. The trade union movement transformed society. And if you look back to the press at the time there was often popular support not the rabid stuff you see in the Mail and the Sun.

Too much of what we think now is blinkered based on the 'union bashing' of Thatcher and 'the grim 70s'. Even Thatcher preferred to have a negotiated settlement. If you'd swapped Thatcher and Scargil you would have still had the same entrenched battle.

Trade unions are not an evil empire, they are a membership organisation primarily negotiating pay and conditions. I would rather be part of an organisation negotiating on my behalf, than outside.

Like government, you get the trade union leadership you deserve. If you don't like it, join, get involved and change things.

Bob Crow is an awkward so and so, but plays the media well (villain and hero) and has more levers than most. Aslef are of course more moderate. The unions campaigned against privitisation of the rail network, and lost. Result more money paid now to the train operating companies and wider subsidies, than during the days of state ownership. A license to print money hence Virgin just wouldn't let it go (West Coast main line).

Really dunno what the 'you are a lazy lot' comment is. I recall the Aussies having a go at Brits for striking in the past when in truth (or struth) there were more strikes over there. And of course our European friends are far more millitant.

Worklessness and the benefits trap is of course a separate thing - please discuss on a new thread.

You lose a lot of dosh, particularly on boxing day, for striking, so it should be quite a tough decision.

And finally why is public transport, irrespective of LU strikes, so bad on boxing day? I am going to have to drive yet again to a festive match.

Informed comment please - whether you agree or disagree with me.

[Huguenot]

Well you seem to have said a few contradictory things.

If unions primary responsibility is pay and conditions of workers, then you can't claim they were altruistically fighting on the behalf of the nation in the privatisation battle. They must have been fighting for pay and conditions there also.

Secondly you've said that striking on Boxing Day in particular would cost them a lot of money - this implies that their terms for working on Boxing Day are already very attractive and hence a strike is unjustified.

Views regarding striking tube drivers are not motivated by Thatcherism, but by the view that tube drivers are already over compensated for the work they do for too few hours, with disproportionate perks in holidays and pensions. They are simply perceived as not giving value for money.

Your views on the success or not of rail privatisation are unsupported by facts. They rehash propaganda regarding privatisation that don't take into account pre and post privatisation activity on an equal playing field.

[minder]

?

[Huguenot]

There are millions of other people who will also work on Boxing Day minder, tube drivers are no more deserving than them.

Working on public holidays is what you do when you work for a public service. If they didn't want to work bank holidays they shouldn't have taken the job. Bank holiday working was agreed by the tube drivers over 20 years ago - that means that most tube drivers have always known that bank holiday working was part of the job, and it always will be.

What they're doing is simply price gouging, holding the economy of London's retail industry to ransom whilst they extort money under menaces.

[Marmora Man]

minder Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Maxxi do you think that tube drivers are robots?

> Do they not deserve quality time with their

> families at Christmas?

>

> Tube drivers receive no enhancements in pay for

> working Boxing Day.

>

> If a driver does not work on Boxing Day or any

> other Bank Holiday, including Xmas Day, then one

> day is taken off their annual leave entitlement

> for each day.

But what exactly is the Tube driver's annual leave entitlement? In the NHS annual leave is usually around 33 - 38 days a year (to include bank holidays).

It's not at all unusual for public sector staff to have to work on a Bank Holidays and weekends, it's part of the job for nurses, police, doctors, servicemen, paramedics, bus drivers and tube drivers.

What makes Tube drivers special appears to be their ever escalating demand for improved pay & conditions. Given that their annual basic salary is approximately twice the average wage, with some useful additional benefits such as free travel in London they are hardly being exploited by penny pinching management. Rather the reverse, they appear to be exploiting, and bullying by striking on key holidays, the hard pressed members of the public that fund their salaries.

[ED - NAGAIUTB]

Plenty of people in plenty of industries have to work Boxing Day or over the festive period.

If you're earning upwards of ?45k for what is essentially an unskilled job, then I fail to see what makes you so special a case. You go into it knowing that you will have to work some public holidays, it can hardly be a surprise.

Do Tube drivers et al deserve time with their families at Xmas? Yes. But then do what I and many others do and use holiday entitlement for this period. My colleagues and I are on call over this period and despite never having had a callout in the last 5 years, I still banked up a few days to make sure that my time was undisturbed.

What is really sickening is that it is the vast majority who suffer due to the tiny minority who had the gall to paint themselves as the victims and you get people like Malumbu defending them like we are back in the dark ages and live in a serfdom.

Hopefully TFL will have the stones to follow through on their warning and sack those who strike as this seems to be what the man and woman in the street wants.

[KidKruger]

Malumbu - pointing out that Aussies are more lazy than Brits in your opinion doesn't excuse this lazy, opportunist and cynical move by the tube drivers. They really don't appreciate when they've got it good.

Obviously an area where we need some reliable and dependable Poles, Bangladeshis or other hard-working people.

[minder]

?

[EPB]

Will any buses be running on Boxing Day?

[KidKruger]

Only if we want to be more confident that the public services will not be held to ransom every darned Xmas, Easter and other key periods when many public need the service.

[Huguenot]

I don't think that's what anyone said at all minder.

What people said was that with an average salary of ?44,500 per year on a 35 hour working week and 43 days annual leave for a job they KNEW would entail working on bank holidays when they took it, there is NO justification for holding London to ransom and aggressively targeting other workers.

Tube driver activity damages our economy, and anything that does that cost jobs.

Given their generous existing terms and conditions, there is no public support for tube driver demands.

[uncleglen]

The only downside to being a tube driver is that someone might jump out in front of you and traumatise you- but they get loads of time off and counselling for that rare event. Public sector workers have had a 2 year wage freeze- now that's a good reason to go on strike-if they only could.

[StraferJack]

Not supporting the strike, but Fark me plenty of people painting it as a very attractive job

Why aren't more of us applying? Serious question

[KidKruger]

don't want to work Boxing Day, so have a job that explicitly supports that.

[Loz]

StraferJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Not supporting the strike, but Fark me plenty of

> people painting it as a very attractive job

>

> Why aren't more of us applying? Serious question

Because you can't. The positions are only offered internally in LU.

[StraferJack]

So get a job at LU first. Whats stopping us?

[david_carnell]

Without trade unions all those people attacking striking Aslef members would be in work themselves on Boxing Day. Trade unions won holiday rights.

And Tube workers don't have disproportionately good working conditions, they have more effective unions.

Millions of workers have crap jobs and appalling working conditions. Instead of being on their knees they should look to Aslef as an example and join a union.

[Voyageur]

I've nowt against TUs - I am a member of one and in my current management position I work closely and collaboratively with them. I do think that the Aslef Union has overstepped the mark here though and gives Unions a bad name.