Tube strikes

They get 40k? Why the hell did i bother going to uni?

Would you sit on your tod, holding a lever day in day out?

They get 40k? Why the hell did i bother going to uni?

Unfortunately its basically a union controlled closed shop so you’d have to work your way up from the low-paid platform staff type jobs to earn the ‘right’ to train as a driver. Of course being a card-carrying Bob Crow supporter doesn’t hurt upwards progression.

Would you sit on your tod, holding a lever day in day out?

Well apparently you said it’s so easy that everyone (save you) can do it.

They get 40k? Why the hell did i bother going to uni?

Just an idea, but was it so’s you could get an education, mix with other like-minded people, share ideas, get drunk, meet members of the opposite/same sex for naughtiness?

Ah Juan, would you be French and a stereotypical union/strikelover? 😉 😆

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!

Rudeboy “Nurses do one of the most valuable jobs in our society, yet are rewarded relatively very badly. They do longer hours than most, and often have to work well beyond the end of their shifts, as there aren’t enough nurses. Why not? Because it’s an extremely hard job, for shite money.”

I’m not sure where you are getting your “facts” from Rudeboy, but I suspect that you’re simply throwing about Rhetoric to obfuscate your lack of knowledge.

You won’t find anyone disagreeing that Nurses do a valuable and important job. That’s precisely why pay for Nurses has increased over 50% in the last 10 years. Average Nurse salaries rose to £27K in 2006 exclusive of a 20% London allowance for Nurses working in the capital. Factor in the pension etc and Nurses now earn nearly 50% more than the median private sector worker – so by no means underpaid.

Like most NHS workers, it’s also wrong to assert that Nurses do longer hours than most workers. The ONS reports average hours of 36 hours a week compared to 37.5 in the private sector.

To summarise, your claim that Nurses work for longer hours and for shite money is nonsense.

TUBE LINE UPDATES
Northern Line – good service
District Line – Trains from Wimbledon to High Street Kensington
Jubilee Line – Trains from Stanmore to Neasden; Waterloo to Stratford
Metropolitan Line – Trains from Wembley Park to Baker Street
Piccadilly Line – Trains from Arnos Grove to Cockfosters
Victoria Line – Trains from Seven sisters to Victoria
Bakerloo Line – Trains from Queen’s Park to Paddington
Central Line – Liverpool Street to Epping and Hainault; White City to Ruislip and Ealing Broadway
Circle Line – suspended
Hammersmith and City Line – Trains from Baker Street to Hammersmith
Waterloo and City – suspended

Farmer Giles: spout figures all you want. The reality is that Nurses do a darn sight more than most people, and get paid relatively poorly.

Why don’t they deserve £40 or 50k?

‘Nurses earn 50% more than the median private sector worker’

And they’re doing a 500% more valuable job…

Oh, and your figures seem to conflict with the NHS’…

And they’re doing a 500% more valuable job…

Ah another GCSE-standard debating arguement.

For the sake of argument Rudeboy, what do you consider to be the optimal percentage of GDP that the state should account for?

I only ask because I foresee a budget problem developing when everyone being paid by the state is being paid more than anyone in the “greed sector”. 🙂

I only ask because I foresee a budget problem developing when everyone being paid by the state is being paid more than anyone in the “greed sector”

Did I say ‘everyone’? Did I?

No, I din’t.

There is a place for the greed sector. I’m not denying that. But there should be more recognition and reward for those who do socially valuable jobs such as nursing, woon’t you agree?

So RB, how much??

Who decides which line of work is ‘socially valuable’?

I don’t know; what are you asking me for? Ask one of the economists like BigDummy or Stoner or whoever. They can tell you.

BD; I’m sure it’s not that simple, and i’m being idealistic. 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.

Would mean that some might have to sell their luxury apartments in Monaco, a couple of Ferraris, the private jets, etc…

A few more things for you to munch over Rudeboy. 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:

The growing greed sector / public sector divide

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 concurr… If for example the private sector job is yours hora, from that I can guess from this thread there is strictly no way RD can say that.
Value of your work being 0 0 times a trillion is still equal 0.

I don’t know; what are you asking me for?

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, and 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 =

😆

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

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.

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?

TandemJeremy: “£27 000 average for nurese – no way jose.”

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?