[Closed] Tube strikes

A few more things for you to munch over [b]Rudeboy[/b]. From the sound of it you'd be a lot happier somewhere else, maybe Russia.,,?

Anyway, here's something else for you to fume over:

[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/hamish-mcrae/hamish-mcrae-the-growing-publicprivate-divide-1701051.html ]The growing greed sector / public sector divide[/url]

But I'm sure a system could be developed, whereby people can still have nice cars and houses and bottles of wine, just that more people copuld have that.

Sounds a lot like some form of free market capitalism to me, with limited state intervention.

Can't be bothered reading that, so you've wasted your time.

Russia? No, worse than here by a long, long way.

I think one of the main reasons why there's so much resentment here is that there's people like Hora, angry that 'lowly' Tube drivers get paid more than them, and others who see Tube workers as being 'beneath' them, in the social scale. Most of it seems to be about jealousy, and how people want to be seen. Seems to me, to be mainly about personal status. Reveals a fair bit about peoples' insecurities.

Would there be so much anger, if this were a more financially stable period? Would there indeed even be industrial action at all?

Get used to it folks, as you're going to see a lot more of this, as things become ever more uncertain.

If it all gets too bad, why not consider careers on the Underground, or in Nursing?

Great pay, conditions and hours, apparently...

Bored now.

Ah another GCSE-standard debating arguement.

[i]I don't know; what are you asking me for?[/i]

It is this sort of intellectual laziness that undermines your pretensions to be the world's leading authority on everything. You were being asked because it appeared to be important to understanding your point. 😉

Sobriety I have not heard of that.

Well in the not too distant future I'm sure they and many others within the public sector will have a genuine reason to gripe and perhaps strike, when (as shown historically) the painful cuts that invariably follow a period of Labour government mismanagement and over-spend have to be made in order to try and reduce excessive national debt.

Failed to end 'boom and bust', failed to reform public services to bring them inline with private sector efficiencies, failed to make hay whilst the weather was fine, [b]and[/b] sold off the rainy day money (and boy is it pouring now) when the gold market was at a low, quite a record.

Oh yes. I remember that. Didnt he sell it at half its value (3bn under?)

The selling of gold is a global problem and it started in America, hora, as any fule kno

£27 000 average for nurese - no way jose. Nurses pay has crept up in recent times and terms and conditions are good but the only way the average approaches £27 000 is including "nurse managers" I would think the average including those nurses who work in the private sector ( who get paid less) would be 3 or 4 grand below that.

My goodness - I have just sussed it out - CFH =
[img] [/img]

😆

Juan, dammit! I thought it was far too good an idea to be true 😥

[i]Most of it seems to be about jealousy, and how people want to be seen. Seems to me, to be mainly about personal status. Reveals a fair bit about peoples' insecurities. [/i]

You're sounding like Anthony Steen now 🙂

I don't know who Antony Steen is.

Maybe he sounds like RudeBoy?

I've just remembered I used to know a tube driver. He seemed alright, but I am still amazed that he earned that much for sitting on his arse all day, whilst I was working 12 hour days in all weathers for something like 16k (including overtime).

As for pay and conditions, I'd have thought that the average private soldier has far worse pay and conditions than the bulk of the LU staff, what with getting shot at, motared and being away from home for six months at a time. And yet they can't strike. Maybe they should quit being a soldier and become tube drivers though...

Imagine, private sector company- striking because you want more pay even though the boss says cuts need to be made as orders are down/or costs are up..then adding in 'oh and Tim&Jane that you sacked for gross misconduct (theft/lying over a safety issue)- reinstate them now or else.

You'd have to go back to the days of British Leyland wouldnt you to see a parallel 😕

You'd have to go back to the days of British Leyland wouldnt you to see a parallel

Why, are the employees of this theoretical private sector company also going out on strike over the type of biscuits sold in the canteen on top of all the other stuff?

[b]TandemJeremy:[/b] [i]"£27 000 average for nurese - no way jose."
[/i]

Erm, well the RCN reports that the MINIMUM starting pay for a registered nurse in 2007 was £19,683 - and in London that's topped up with a 20% weighting. Add on the index linked pension (worth around 20-24% of salary depending on which estimate you use) and you'll find that newly qualified nurses almost earn the same as median public and private sector salaries. Add in a few years of experience / pay rises, and it's hard not to conclude that Nurses now start on more than most other graduate career paths, and quickly see salary increases that take them past median salaries for the whole workforce.

http://www.rcn.org.uk/support/pay_and_conditions/nursing_pay_rates_200708

Well if you compute it that way and include the nurse manager and exclude the non NHS nurses then maybe.

hora as far as I am aware the same number of people are taking the tube this week as the same week last year (given a small epsilon). SO you can't really say that they have less jobs can you?

can we not get back to the point, instead of relying on infighting and vitriol towards RiteBoy to prop up this thread?
public sector workers are paid well enough and will have lots more to complain about in the not-too-distant future when their super pension benefits get changed for the worse

the point that I'm sure we all agree on is that this is all Bob Crow's fault and that he is a militant communist idiot whose actions solve nothing and only inflate his own workshy uber-ego

Rudeboy said - Would there be so much anger, if this were a more financially stable period? Would there indeed even be industrial action at all?

Of course there would! Even more so! Have you forgotten the other public sector stikes? The teachers went on national strike over pay 14 months ago for example. The RMT had several Tube strikes in 2006 and 2007. There were plenty of strikes when the economy was doing well! In fact this is when stikes tend to occur - when unions think everyone else but them are getting a better deal. The politics of envy/jealousy!

I clearly detect jealousy from you Rudeboy, you assume everyone who is working in the so called "greed" sector is loaded. That is so far from the truth! The opposite is often true in fact. Public sector workers have a great deal more job security, higher average wages and fabulous pension provision, all from a sector that doen't make a bean in profit and has no natural predators.

Nobody is looking down on tube drivers! This is not some issue about social status, it's purely about being rewarded an appropriate ammount of money for the job that you do. Because of the situation with unions and the usual "tail wagging the dog" scenario, tube drivers are overpaid. The unions hold TFL to ransom to get their way and they win!

Look at the Fleet Street printwortworkers dispute in the 80's. News International opened the Wapping site and computerised typesetting. The entire lot of the Fleet street workers were out on their ear. They deserved this because they had held the newspaper bosses to ransom for years, earning hugely inflated salaries. The resulting violent protests went on there night after night and even disgruntled sacked miners from up north rocked up for the punch up.

Unions did the same to many large corporations e.g. Fords in Dagenham, wrecked the profitablity of the company. Manufacturers went elsewhere in the world as a result. Mostly working people lost out. Nice move you idealistic union numpties!

Rudeboy openly admits to being idealistic. Well ideology is a sign of madness when you ignore practical reality, the hard facts of life - someone has to earn all this money at some point. We should all aspire to certain ideals, but not when it is going against the grain, going against what is economically viable.

Rule number one: We have to make good products to sell, that people will buy, preferrably to sell abroad. Not a chance! The public sector should be there to support this and should be a sized according to what the so called "greed sector" needs and can afford to support. Labour politicians can't grasp this fact and this is why they keep expanding a public sector while the economy shrinks. The road to hell!

Unions did the same to many large corporations e.g. Fords in Dagenham, wrecked the profitablity of the company. Manufacturers went elsewhere in the world as a result.

They were moving anyway. To the East, where cheap labour, no unions and few workers' rights mean they can exloit the **** out of people, in the name of Profit.

if this were a more financially stable period? Would there indeed even be industrial action at all?

There was strike action before yes. I remember it. TFL want to make cuts to he backroom office staff that proliferated after the disastrous tubelines PFP thingy?

Eastern countries etc,,,to places were people are delighted at a chance of a tangible job where previously they really struggled!

Why do you think so many people from the around the world come to Britain? The easy, free availability of heathcare, benefits, education and housing. They can't get this where they live!

There is nowhere else in the world where you can get everything paid for on benefits without contributing!

Spongebob - you do know that you can't get benefits until you have lived a year in the UK and contributed for that year unless you come from a country with reciprocal arrangements

Has anyone noticed that Bob Crow and Frank Sobotka appear to have been seperated at birth?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/bob-crow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sobotka

TandemJeremy - Member

Spongebob - you do know that you can't get benefits until you have lived a year in the UK and contributed for that year unless you come from a country with reciprocal arrangements

Really, so a council housing department will turn away a homeless family who have just arrived in the UK? The NHS hospital won't treat them if they fall ill? For example, how do asylum seekers survive here with no home and no money?

This is getting way off topic! Striking tube workers have no right to close the Tube down for 48 hours in a dispute over pay. They are damn lucky to have jobs, many of which are very well paid for the effort and responsibility demanded of them. People relying on the Tube should not have to put up with the disruption to their lives. Shame on the unions that forced this issue on the workers!

Spongebob - Member

TandemJeremy - Member

For example, how do asylum seekers survive here with no home and no money?

This is the reailty for asylum seekers

Under Section 4 of the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, failed asylum seekers have had state support withdrawn unless they agree to sign up to return home voluntarily. This applies even to those who cannot be returned because it is unsafe. As a result many asylum seekers, who are often terrified at the prospect of returning home, are being left in a kind of limbo, banned from working yet unable to access benefits.

http://www.allwomencount.net/EWC%20Immigrant/destitute_asylum_seekers.htm

[b]TandemJeremy: [/b][i]"Spongebob - you do know that you can't get benefits until you have lived a year in the UK and contributed for that year unless you come from a country with reciprocal arrangements "[/i]

Unfortunately this is not strictly true. These rules main apply to workers who migrated here from the recent EU succession countries in their first 12 months after arrival.

As an aside, the Polish Government is currently running a campaign to persuade Poles to stay in the UK by making them aware of their benefit entitlements as a ploy to reduce the impact on their own benefit system.

Why do you think so many people from the around the world come to Britain?

Because of the cultural links established when we barged into countless other countries around the world demanding money with menaces ?

Yeah, that might have something to do with it...

As an aside, the Polish Government is currently running a campaign to persuade Poles to stay in the UK by making them aware of their benefit entitlements as a ploy to reduce the impact on their own benefit system.

trailmonkey - Member

Why do you think so many people from the around the world come to Britain?

Because of the cultural links established when we barged into countless other countries around the world demanding money with menaces ?

So what about the immigrants from the ones we didn't barge into?

How many hundreds of years do we tax payers have to repay the alleged debt for what the power brokers did many generations ago? Did we bring no benefit to any of those countries?

The notion that we owe everyone from around the world some sort of compensation under these circumstances is nonsense. In fact it's deranged!

Nobody alive today played any part in it, so I don't see why we should feel obligated, or apologetic in any way!

The developed world continues to exploit the undeveloped world, it's called "trade"! Every country has it's own government who have the opportunity to rectify the wrongs. Shame there are so many corrupt administrations. Well as they repeatedly squander everything they get to help rebuild their countries, they can always blame it on the colonialists of a couple of hundred years ago when they are held to account!

Back to the Tube strike.... 😆

The notion that we owe everyone from around the world some sort of compensation under these circumstances is nonsense. In fact it's deranged!

All of that is irrelevant. The fact is that the UK as a place to escape crushing poverty is in the psyche of many people around the world as a result of the links created by the British Empire.

How many hundreds of years do we tax payers have to repay the alleged debt for what the power brokers did many generations ago

Nobody alive today played any part in it, so I don't see why we should feel obligated, or apologetic in any way!

I think you'll find that the British Empire was very much alive and kicking right up until the end of WWII. If you think that the comparative wealth and privelidge that you enjoy today is unconnected with the events of the British Empire then you're highly delusional.

I read somewhere, and maybe our resident Frenchman can confim/deny this that when the French underground staff went on strike they all turned up for work, opened the ticket gates and let everyone have free travel for the duration of the strike, hurting the business but not the commuters.

Make more sense than our lots efforts, even if it's made up!

They used to do that in Holland when I lived there. They got lots of public support and got the attentions of the bosses by hitting them where it hurt the most - in the wallet.

Strikes on the tube today - all I can say is I haven't even had a RPI pay increase in the past 2 years, I've seen my hours increase and actually had my pay cut twice. I have no sympathy for the strikers. Things are tough for everyone.

Shame there are so many corrupt administrations

..that were often installed/supported by the West, to favour Western trade..

Like Saddam Hussein, for example. Augusto Pinochet. Or the recently deceased president of Gabon. And countless others.

Bob Crow has been on the radio, offering to re-open negotiations. So far, TFL jolly well have not responded.

Oh, and quite a few Tube trains were actually running today.

And I notice that some of the reporting of the matter has been less than truthful, and particularly biased against the RMT. Greed and selfishness seem to be taking priority over workers' rights.

>Bob Crow has been on the radio, offering to re-open negotiations. So far, TFL jolly well have not responded.

LOL - TfL were on CH4 news offering to meet the unions tonight or tomorrow morning. When pressed on the same programme Crow said he'd meet them tonight.

Looks like Boris has played a blinder. The fat ****er Crow was tied in knots on C4 news

Could you say that hes a .....scare(D) Crow?

Ah taxi's here

[i]Average Nurse salaries rose to £27K[/i]

Very few ward-based (i.e. doing the grunt work at the bedside) nurses earn anything close to £27k.

What TJ said, plus: a very experienced nurse with outstanding clinical acumen (think senior NCO level, as a rough equivalent) who has chosen [i]not[/i] to take up a sister/charge nurse/nurse specialist/NP/management etc role will not be earning a huge amount over and above her/his starting salary (which has indeed improved). The public get [i]bloody[/i] good value out of those kind of nurses, believe me.

Not moaning about my salary. Just pointing out, is all.

The nurses salary is a different argument. The NHS is massively mismanaged and bloated at higher "positions" with a staff of over 1.4 million (like that many people are needed 🙄 )

I'm sure all the quangos/shit jobs Nu Labour have created for the voters in their heartlands (the NHS/Govt accounts for 75% of the economy in the North East) could be culled and nurses paid an appropriate rate

We need an age-limit for nurses. 23yrs max. Shorter skirts, scratch that- tighter skirts and heels. If a nurse is over 9stone she has to have a GG-rack. If under 9stone, a min. D-cup will suffice.