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Ultimately if the railway unions were broken substantial reductions in staffing numbers and thus wage bills would be achievable. I will leave the question of whether that is good or not as an exercise for the reader.
So honestly I don't see the Government backing down - in the current economic climate and with work from home they likely have the political capital necessary to "tough it out" until the RMT is forced to capitulate.
Why would the government bankroll the railway through the pandemic if their plan all along was to decimate it once passengers actually started using it again?
This forum is insane at times, someone breaks the law often repeatedly they are given all the help in the world on the disputes page.
Law abiding railway workers just wanting a pay rise in line with inflation are treated like criminals.
Why would a lorry driver need to work from home? How many lorry drivers catch the train to their place of work? How many factory workers catch the train? How many stations are anywhere near factories or distribution centres?
Some people who work on the railway think it is far more important than it really is. Outside of London and a couple of other major cities a lot of people will only know there is a rail strike on if they hear it on the news. Outside of the South East the railway is a complete irrelevance to many people's lives.
Why would the government bankroll the railway through the pandemic if their plan all along was to decimate it once passengers actually started using it again?
Erm, an estimated £500 billion cost to the economy as a result of covid restrictions, rampant inflation, growing worries over supply chains, energy crisis, all of which have happened since the railways were propped up.
This forum is insane at times, someone breaks the law often repeatedly they are given all the help in the world on the disputes page.
Law abiding railway workers just wanting a pay rise in line with inflation are treated like criminals.
Who is treating them like criminals? Some of us are pointing out the economic reality that is 2022, and that in an era of cutbacks throwing yourselves in front of the government's cutback bus might not be best advised.
Edit: The railways and their staff do not exist in some financial bubble, we are all going through the mill and many have suffered far more. Rail unions are entitled to suggest goals to their membership, but they also have to be realistic. The government is making cuts, and will happily throw parts of the rail industry under the bus if it senses savings and political gain. This is also true for other parts on public services. Sorry guys but this is how it is. By all means head down the industrial action route, but do it with your eyes open. You are going to be taking a gamble with your careers, and some with likely lose big.
A gamble with future of the railway industry? Yes, of course, they've gambled for more already.
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What does the press have to do with anything? Either they're firmly on the Conservative's side already and won't change their views over transport policy, or they've already tried just about every other possible criticism of Johnson and it has had no effect. Have you seen the criticism of the Prime Minister in the Guardian, FT and Mirror? Because currently it's having approximately zero impact. There's no way the Mail, Sun or Express will criticise him over the railway union's dispute.
I wouldn’t say zero - the Tories are consistently trailing in the polls after various scandals which have run in many media articles for some time.
I am however not sure the general public sees rail unions - particularly in the RMT in a good light; I wouldn’t not be surprised if it was firmly in the negative and at the bottom of a theoretical ranking against others such as Unison or Unite.
Setting up a fight against the Government is a dangerous game - it could work but look at GTR & DOO/OBS issues - the unions catastrophically lost that one in the end and lost a lot of initial passenger goodwill with it.
If you see anything that causes concern on the forum please report it using the report button and please don't bring up other topics that are unrelated.
Really? I see no evidence of rail workers being treated like criminals. Customers, yes. But rail workers? No!
I also don't see why rail workers should be paid more than other similar/equivalent jobs; the general public are hardly going to be sympathetic to people who already get paid very good wages demanding a greater increase than the average person is going to get.
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I am however not sure the general public sees rail unions - particularly in the RMT in a good light; I wouldn’t not be surprised if it was firmly in the negative and at the bottom of a theoretical ranking against others such as Unison or Unite.
The RMT only have themselves to blame when you see some of the wording in their press releases that were released in the last few years. Those have been "manna from Heaven" to those in power who wished to paint the RMT in the worst possible light.
Why would a lorry driver need to work from home? How many lorry drivers catch the train to their place of work? How many factory workers catch the train? How many stations are anywhere near factories or distribution centres?
Some people who work on the railway think it is far more important than it really is. Outside of London and a couple of other major cities a lot of people will only know there is a rail strike on if they hear it on the news. Outside of the South East the railway is a complete irrelevance to many people's lives.
A question for those opposed to rail staff taking part in strike action over pay . What if any payrise do you think rail staff should be getting then ?
A question for those opposed to rail staff taking part in strike action over pay . What if any payrise do you think rail staff should be getting then ?
I did not make a claim that everyone could work 4 days a week instead of 5 and the same amount of work would get done. I also don't think that would be true. Closing the office for a day or having fewer people in the office every day would almost certainly impact what could be achieved.
What I said was the office workers who work 40 hours a week i.e. those who work things like 9-6 or 8-5 with a 1 hour lunch break, could work shorter hours and still get the same amount of work done. I've seen myself that people who work an extra half hour or hour per day, compared to other office workers, don't get more done. They get tired and start working slower. They also make more mistakes, which then they have to go back and correct. It's like the exercising for an hour, over exercising for 50 minutes. If you start slowing down to keep going for the extra 10 minutes, then what's the point?
This is just another variation on the same theme. Virtually no office workers I have ever known take a one hour lunch.
What you are describing probably happens for 10-12hr shifts, which is why it is daft that so many employers have them.
As soon as you shorten the working day to 7hrs x 5 days work, exactly the same people realise they can now do their full weekly hours in less than 9hrs x 4 days and try to sell the 3 day weekend as another productivity gain, while falling silent on the obvious conflict.
Its precisely because I DO have a mortgage to pay that some kind of action has to be taken! You are obviously more comfortable than me despite us having the same job and employer. 3 years of no pay rise, and who knows how many more if we all just bend over.
But if rail staff pay rises get authorised by DfT, they are driven by central government. And the Civil Service may have to deliver £35 Billion a year in savings.
You see where I am going with that... Welcome to public sector politics.
I see that as ever whenever rail/tube workers are in dispute, many people are happy to simultaneously imply that they're not important, while somehow going on strike would be holding the country to ransom.
It's a weird country, this, full of weird people spoonfed faux-outrage by their chosen news media and too daft to realise how they're being had. PT Barnum was right.
Rail staff, 0%, for the next five to ten years or until passenger numbers return to 2019 levels, which ever is later... At least everyone else will have caught up and overtaken by then, even those who wouldn't even dare ask for a pay rise, for the good of the nation and business!
Rail staff, 0%, for the next five to ten years or until passenger numbers return to 2019 levels, which ever is later... At least everyone else will have caught up and overtaken by then, even those who wouldn't even dare ask for a pay rise, for the good of the nation and business!
Rail staff, 0%, for the next five to ten years or until passenger numbers return to 2019 levels, which ever is later... At least everyone else will have caught up and overtaken by then, even those who wouldn't even dare ask for a pay rise, for the good of the nation and business!
As I’ve said above I think a decent rise in basic pay will be offered (say 10%) but with substantial strings attached to modernise methods of working over a period of time (accepting it can’t happen overnight). It’s when those strings aren’t accepted that matters could get very messy with the Government forcing new contracts through. See British Gas and British Airways for further details.
There is no doubt jobs will go particularly in ticket offices for example.
I see that as ever whenever rail/tube workers are in dispute, many people are happy to simultaneously imply that they're not important, while somehow going on strike would be holding the country to ransom.
It's a weird country, this, full of weird people spoonfed faux-outrage by their chosen news media and too daft to realise how they're being had. PT Barnum was right.
Rail staff, 0%, for the next five to ten years or until passenger numbers return to 2019 levels, which ever is later... At least everyone else will have caught up and overtaken by then, even those who wouldn't even dare ask for a pay rise, for the good of the nation and business!
Quite , and in that time how many will have left , retention is another important issue in some grades . I know some in non driving grades whose position already is the only thing keeping them in the industry is the years they have put into the pension scheme but as above long term pay restraint also hits this .
As I’ve said above I think a decent rise in basic pay will be offered (say 10%) but with substantial strings attached to modernise methods of working over a period of time (accepting it can’t happen overnight). It’s when those strings aren’t accepted that matters could get very messy with the Government forcing new contracts through. See British Gas and British Airways for further details.
There is no doubt jobs will go particularly in ticket offices for example.
Agreed, 10% - subject to all the 'silliness' over Sundays, DOO, automation etc etc being accepted.
Alternatively, a full objective job evaluation to ensure that all roles are correctly rewarded for the skills required.
There is never a "right time", but 2022 is becoming a cluster-you-know-what for a lot of workers, inflation is on the march, energy prices are killing people's budgets, and even the war in Ukraine could affect us. All of this on top of the country trying to recover from covid measures. Is this really the time to be doing this? You have to balance the likelihood of success versus the risk of further damaging yourselves, and right now bookies probably wouldn't even offer odds on a successful industrial action campaign.
And yet the government are deciding it is exactly the right time to force through NR cuts, raid pension pots and then attack the guard grade on a national scale rather than one per TOC basis....
Of course there needs to be a balance of risk/rewards, but currently he future is bleak for the industry from a DfT perspective. We're (TOC) running 80% service and are consistently at 77-79% for both revenue and passenger numbers. Any numbers in excess of that is growth of pre-covid levels! The railway isn't failing in the way the government are putting forward.
Therefore in my eyes, the risk of not striking now is far greater than the risk of doing nothing
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It's not for want of trying. Why, for example, is the RMT noticeably less successful in the bus industry or maritime?
The rail unions have no special powers. They're small unions punching well above their weight by taking full advantage, very successfully, of the political sensitivity and monopoly structure of the rail industry. Good luck to them and the workers who reap the benefits, but don't denigrate people outside the industry who are in no position to flex industrial strength in the same way.
I was previously in an industry with next to no unions, I'm well aware the difference they make and we are starting to see new unions pop up to deal with new industries such as Amazon and Starbucks in the US. I hope that follows over here.
I can't comment on maritime, but bus industry includes far more operators and is far harder to deliver substantial hits due to this. You have cities live London where many operators operate Tfl, then you have cities with monopolies like NE in Birmingham which would be far easier and a bigger impact. But these cities have excellent rail networks that are already used extensively by the majority who have a choice. Where I live now there are next to no buses, mostly hourly at best so any industrial action would barely be noticed by the vast majority of local people.
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Agreed, 10% - subject to all the 'silliness' over Sundays, DOO, automation etc etc being accepted.
Alternatively, a full objective job evaluation to ensure that all roles are correctly rewarded for the skills required.
This forum is insane at times, someone breaks the law often repeatedly they are given all the help in the world on the disputes page.
Law abiding railway workers just wanting a pay rise in line with inflation are treated like criminals.
They can enforce minimum service levels whenever they like but unless they’re going to employ enough staff to run a true 7 day service then it won’t make any difference.
The proposal being promoted by Ministers is to change the requirements for strike action specifically to qualify for lawful protection.
I would think that although you're entirely correct to point out that working to rule is also an effective tool in an industrial dispute, not being able to go on strike at all would make a significant difference in a negotiation.
Strikes without lawful protection are very rare. If collective bargaining is in place this may be protected under lawful strike action but wouldn't be under unauthorised strike action.
I work in the public sector and I've never received a pay rise higher than 3% in 15 years of service. Some years I get nothing, but generally it's around 1% or 2%.
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