Current Affairs Rail strikes

[Diogenes the Cynic]

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...e-day-strike-in-june-over-possible-job-losses

What's everyone's feelings regarding this?

I'm pretty annoyed as I have tickets to travel to Cornwall on 24th which are non-refundable. There's no strike on 24th (23 and 25th) but the trains are going to be utterly messed up on the other days of the week regardless.

Looks like their pay increase is far above other sectors including my own, the nursing sector.

This is not the way to win public favour in my opinion, Glastonbury that week too.

 

[Simon Buttle]

It is what it is tbh, the railways are a mess in this country anyway and have been for ages. I have no idea what the answer is to solving it. Southern is the operator down here and their whole network is just outdated, 1960/70's style stations and track and signal systems that break all the time.

 

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Not sure what to do for the best.

Tickets cost 100 on train.

B&B costs 200 but I can cancel for free for next 10 days.

I'll probably try to risk it but a lot of people including myself are very angry that holidays that we have saved for in very hard times are being ruined by this.

 

[edge]

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...e-day-strike-in-june-over-possible-job-losses

What's everyone's feelings regarding this?

I'm pretty annoyed as I have tickets to travel to Cornwall on 24th which are non-refundable. There's no strike on 24th (23 and 25th) but the trains are going to be utterly messed up on the other days of the week regardless.

Looks like their pay increase is far above other sectors including my own, the nursing sector.

This is not the way to win public favour in my opinion, Glastonbury that week too.

Its,not just about pay.
It's pensions, job cuts ect
There hasn't been a pay rise of any short for 3 years.
Meanwhile the Dutch, Germany ect owners are or have shifted billions out of the country to keep there own fare cost down.

 

[AsiaAsia82]

I think the leisure sector and freight will be affected, business wise it’ll be working from home I’d imagine.
Needs re-nationalising if profits are being taken out of the country and the expense of jobs and safety fears

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Its,not just about pay.
It's pensions, job cuts ect
There hasn't been a pay rise of any short for 3 years.
Meanwhile the Dutch, Germany ect owners are or have shifted billions out of the country to keep there own fare cost down.

The UK railway sector as a whole has a profit margin of around 2%, which when one thinks that over 80% of income comes from the government, I'm not sure it could be argued that UK passengers are being fleeced to pay for cheap fares overseas. As you can see, staffing makes up the 2nd biggest cost base, which is quite something when I haven't seen a member of staff on a train since before the pandemic.

 

[peteblue]

I’m not a fan of strikes that affect the public….

 

[Chewbacca]

I’m not a fan of strikes that affect the public….

Unavoidable in what really should be a public service

 

[JimmyJeffers]

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...e-day-strike-in-june-over-possible-job-losses

What's everyone's feelings regarding this?

I'm pretty annoyed as I have tickets to travel to Cornwall on 24th which are non-refundable. There's no strike on 24th (23 and 25th) but the trains are going to be utterly messed up on the other days of the week regardless.

Looks like their pay increase is far above other sectors including my own, the nursing sector.

This is not the way to win public favour in my opinion, Glastonbury that week too.

It’s a tough one. Strikes are meant to be a last resort bargaining tool. I think it’s important workers are able to exercise this right and I know many people that have done so (often in my opinion, with good reason such as the firefighters several years ago)
On the flip side though, there have been strikes ongoing in universities and a couple of mates who works in this area thinks that the lecturers striking, don’t live in the real world with regards to their demands. Especially given the subject matter many are teaching.
I guess there has to be an element of trust that the strikers are doing so with good cause and not for selfish/ unrealistic means.
Would probably start thinking different if holidays were cancelled mind you.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It’s a tough one. Strikes are meant to be a last resort bargaining tool. I think it’s important workers are able to exercise this right and I know many people that have done so (often in my opinion, with good reason such as the firefighters several years ago)
On the flip side though, there have been strikes ongoing in universities and a couple of mates who works in this area thinks that the lecturers striking, don’t live in the real world with regards to their demands. Especially given the subject matter many are teaching.
I guess there has to be an element of trust that the strikers are doing so with good cause and not for selfish/ unrealistic means.
Would probably start thinking different if holidays were cancelled mind you.

Train drivers are on an average of £55,000 a year. Train conductors (who are presumably doing something else right now as they're never seen on trains) are paid £31,000 a year on average, which is a fraction lower than the average pay for a nurse. You might argue the job of a union is to extract as high a wage as possible, and therefore the RMT have been very effective in their job, but that doesn't mean that they haven't, and don't continue to go, too far.

 

[edge]

The UK railway sector as a whole has a profit margin of around 2%, which when one thinks that over 80% of income comes from the government, I'm not sure it could be argued that UK passengers are being fleeced to pay for cheap fares overseas. As you can see, staffing makes up the 2nd biggest cost base, which is quite something when I haven't seen a member of staff on a train since before the pandemic.

The Dutch joined owners of Mereyrail , was on record of saying actually what I stated.
Do you honestly think these companies that are running the rail do it out of the Goodness of there heart or something,?
Don't know about London but are workers here worked right through the pandemic..
Thanked with a loss of income through paid overtime we have contracted to do., suddenly taken away with no warning.
Leaving a cut in real wages of about 20%. For months.
By the way no bosses or backroom staff got the same cut.
Most people out there have no real grasp of what the average rail work does.
Same with most jobs to be honest.

 

[edge]

Train drivers are on an average of £55,000 a year. Train conductors (who are presumably doing something else right now as they're never seen on trains) are paid £31,000 a year on average, which is a fraction lower than the average pay for a nurse. You might argue the job of a union is to extract as high a wage as possible, and therefore the RMT have been very effective in their job, but that doesn't mean that they haven't, and don't continue to go, too far.

Train drivers are mostly not in the RMT Union, and are not currently on strike , they will be because the walked out of the meeting even before it finished.
Most station staff are on about £22,000 the rest of the staff cleaners and others are on a lot less.
Ps the figure you see don't factor in that rail companies at the start got a 3 year holiday from paying into the pension pot, by John Major , then were allowed to raid the pension surplus they hadn't paid a penny into.
This results in every rail worker and there dependence being worse off in the future.
The case went to the EU courts who side with the then government.
Now that's a surprise isn't it the working man/woman losing out to big business.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

The Dutch joined owners of Mereyrail , was on record of saying actually what I stated.
Do you honestly think these companies that are running the rail do it out of the Goodness of there heart or something,?
Don't know about London but are workers here worked right through the pandemic..
Thanked with a loss of income through paid overtime we have contracted to do., suddenly taken away with no warning.
Leaving a cut in real wages of about 20%. For months.
By the way no bosses or backroom staff got the same cut.
Most people out there have no real grasp of what the average rail work does.
Same with most jobs to be honest.

That's life. Nurses have had an effective pay cut despite being "clapped" and lauded as heroes, and that's even before the cost of inflation is factored in. Should they shut down A&E and ICU for a bit? There are around 1.2 million unfilled vacancies currently in the UK, so I'm sure highly skilled rail workers could get something more befitting their skills if they wanted rather than causing a ballache for everyone.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Train drivers are mostly not in the RMT Union, and are not currently on strike , they will be because the walked out of the meeting even before it finished.
Most station staff are on about £22,000 the rest of the staff cleaners and others are on a lot less.
Ps the figure you see don't factor in that rail companies at the start got a 3 year holiday from paying into the pension pot, by John Major , then were allowed to raid the pension surplus they hadn't paid a penny into.
This results in every rail worker and there dependence being worse off in the future.
The case went to the EU courts who side with the then government.
Now that's a surprise isn't it the working man/woman losing out to big business.

Again though, compare that to checkout staff in other walks of life. Could those people selling tickets in stations go into Tesco or somewhere and get the same income for manning the checkout? I'm willing to bet that they wouldn't be able to. This is in a world in which the overwhelming majority of passengers are either season ticket holders or use the ticket machines.

Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios - Urban Rail Transit

During COVID-19, certain means were proposed to improve crowd management in the Birmingham New Street railway station. To validate the current system of crowd management in the station, this paper examines the rail passenger flow in the concourse of the Birmingham New Street railway station and...

link.springer.com

It's hard to escape the notion that the RMT simply have the public over a barrel and won't stop until every task is automated away.

 

[edge]

That's life. Nurses have had an effective pay cut despite being "clapped" and lauded as heroes, and that's even before the cost of inflation is factored in. Should they shut down A&E and ICU for a bit? There are around 1.2 million unfilled vacancies currently in the UK, so I'm sure highly skilled rail workers could get something more befitting their skills if they wanted rather than causing a ballache for everyone.

Standard answer, if they don't want to do it get something else, worked out well for the airline industry when there staff did just that?
The last two redundancy packages that were offered the last one was £17,500 didn't matter how long you had been on were oversubscribed and got pulled because they knew they couldn't run the job with the numbers left.
So much for the workersbeen unimportant.