The RMT will always argue a point based on protection of jobs, increasing wages and conditions for their members, to a certain extent that's what they do, they are a trade union, albeit a militant one.
Yes, I do have some sympathy with some of Bob Crowe's points about Capitalism can be a race to the bottom and so on, and we need a certain amount of regulation to protect people at work. Most people do not disagree with this, and some of the industrialists I admire the most are the Joseph Rowtree's and George Cadbury's of the world, not the ones that sent little boys up chimneys or had people working 14 hour days for a pittance.
Like Bob Crowe, I am also against off-shoring jobs to save 1p, and believe quality of life and protection of the environment is important, and we should be looking for value and quality, social effects as well as cheapness. I do not agree with leaving everything to markets, and sometimes co-ops or government intervention is better. Though overall, I prefer smaller government and smaller companies. Too much government, too many large companies is repressive, bad for choice, and bad of competition, and dissuades people from looking after themselves in some cases, starting their own small businesses (which make up the majority of the economy) and so on. I also dislike the idea that companies are 'too big to fail', and in cases like this, they should be broken up, or have regulation.
Where I part company with the RMT, is perception based arguments.
Talking about profit v safety, shareholders are greedy and are all fat cats, we deserve more money than entrepreneurs, investors etc or safety scare arguments in order to keep in place outdated working practices, gain extra money, or heavy staffing.
Yes, there are some shareholders and people on the right that are selfish, lazy and greedy, but this also applies to the left. Private companies are often criticised by the RMT because they are all about profit and are almost evil, making money off other people's hard work. Well if you have a pension or own property, to an extent you are doing the same. If only it was run by politicians everything would be wonderful! Who said politicians run things in people's best interests, especially when they are monopolies? It's almost as if the RMT perceive if it was nationalised there would be an endless pot of money. Actually all the evidence is, quite the reverse, transport gets a very low priority in this country.
There was a lot of criticism with the Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield arguments about private companies.
Anyone that was involved in those accidents knows bad management was the root cause, nothing to do with profit v safety. It could have happened with BR or NR, and I point to the Clapham junction and Grayrigg accidents.
Anyway I digress.
The point is there are pros and cons to all these methods of working. If the RMT object to DOO, why not object to older installations of AB signalling? Considering that guards are generally kept as a consequence of the former. There are pros of having staff with local knowledge and people looking for doors open, hot axle boxes and fires every few minutes, but are serious cons with fog and falling snow, safety reliant on spotting tail lamps, and sparse track circuiting and the potential for incorrect working of block instruments. The reason they don't object to Victorian signalling controlling lines, even though I would argue myself it is safe enough (like DOO), is it would cost a lot of jobs.
