talkmagic.co.uk

Someone PM'd me about the recent Tube strike and I thought it might be useful for some people if I posted my response on a thread for all to see.

The strike that just took place on Tuesday-Thursday of this week was at the behest of the RMT union, of which I am not a member. Hence, I was at work as normal during that period. Some people may not agree with crossing a picket line, but I beg to differ. (I won't bore you with my reasons, but suffice to say that I feel more than justified in my actions).

Anyway, the latest inside info that I have on the matter is that Bob Crow is apparently considering another strike in the next week or two, if matters are not resolved to his satisfaction. That's all I know at this stage. However, it seems unlikely that he will get the support that he hopes for because I don't see my colleagues being too enthusiastic about losing yet more money if another strike gets the go ahead. (Going on strike = no pay). My gut feeling is that the RMT union will come to an agreement with London Underground and there will be no need for further strike action. But don't quote me on that.

At the moment, the Tube network is running normally, but keep an eye and ear out for more updates in the next week or so, especially if you need to use the Tube for an important journey. I hope this has helped the person who PM'd me and other Londoners who have just read this.

I suspect that guys like Bob Crow still draw their wages when they bring their members out on strike as they're paid by the union members and not the rail employers.

It seems to me that a lot of union chiefs these days are on a political gravy train, similar to the MP's and at the expense of the people they are supposed to represent.

I'm not against stikeing where there is a legitimate reason but it seems that the demands in this case aren't realistic given the current climate that the country is in. Crow seems to want the strike more than the rank and file membership.

Tube drivers have got it pretty easy, really. Yes, there job is important, but it's not exactly taxing, is it?

It boggles the mind that these people ignorantly want their demands met when they whole country is in the middle of a damn recession! Selfish, ignorant b******s, if you ask me.

That being said, the strike didn't affect me really. Jubilee Line was still running with minor delays, so I didn't loose any sleep/money over it.

As was said in the original post, most union members don't want to strike again.

But even if they did, from what I can gather they're after assurances that there won't be redundancies (I could be wrong here). I don't think that's too much to ask in a recession is it? And if LU are making a profit, a pay rise isn't either. If they need to strike to get food on the table then sadly it has to be done

But then again, I don't live anywhere near london so it didn't affect me at all

i think if everyone striked over assurances with redundancies - well...wouldnt the country just grind to a halt?

i think the tube and train unions they can almost hold London to ransom...unfair most of the time...true problems can be worked out with work to rules...

as 65% if not more of most people's jobs are done on knowing the right people and getting small favours done....

spoilt kids most union types are...i understand the history of unions, and the good they did...but nowadays? self serving fools the majority are...

and as Dat said - they don't lose out on money when there's a strike...

babyshanks wrote:Tube drivers have got it pretty easy, really. Yes, there job is important, but it's not exactly taxing, is it?

It boggles the mind that these people ignorantly want their demands met when they whole country is in the middle of a damn recession! Selfish, ignorant b******s, if you ask me.

With the utmost respect, babyshanks, you don't know what you're talking about. Have you ever driven Tube trains for LU? If not, then I'm assuming your above comments are based on what you have seen as a passenger which, I'm afraid, is just the tip of the iceberg. Granted, the job is not "taxing" for the most part, but there is so much more that goes on that you as a customer simply don't know about.

For example, it takes four months to train a Tube driver; a few weeks in the classroom and the rest of the time on the road. We are tested constantly and if you fail at any stage, you're out. And then there's the shift work involved. Earliest start on my line is 4:45am and latest finish is 1:30am. (Assuming you're not working the night shift; yes, the Tube needs night shift drivers even though it is closed to the public late at night!)

How many times have I had to decline invitations to parties, BBQs or other social gatherings because I've had to get up at 4am for work? Countless. And even if I do go, I have to watch what I drink and how much because the company carries out random checks on all staff to test for drugs and alcohol. We are allowed up to seven units of alcohol 24 hours prior to booking on for duty and none in the eight hours before starting work. If they test you and you're found positive, then you lose your job. We are also told when we can take our leave/holiday; we have no choice in the matter. So you have to plan your life around the holidays that have been allocated to you and if you happen to have kids but no time off when they are on school hols, then tough. (Unless you swap with a colleague, but there are no guarantees of getting what you want).

Some of my friends, who should know better, often ask why I can't meet up with them for a drink or whatever. "Because I'm working", is my usual response. "But it's a Saturday night!", says ignorant friend. "Yes, and how would you get to that club/pub in the West End if they shut the Tube down because it was a Saturday night and we all fancied the evening off work?" What I'm trying to say is that the job, in common with many other jobs out there, affects parts of your life that are not immediately apparent to the outsider. Sweeping comments like yours are ignorant, unfair and mean very little.

It's not all doom and gloom, mind. I'm just trying to dispel myths that people associate with the Tube and its staff; unless you actually do the job in question, you cannot possibly make a valid judgement about it. Before I go, a little story for you (if you've read this far!)...

A few years ago, the company recruited Tube drivers externally (as opposed to the usual process of promoting existing staff from within the company). Hundreds of people took one look at the salary and holiday entitlement and probably thought "I'll have some of that!" and duly applied. Guess what? Within three years, about 90% of those external recruits that passed the training process left the job. There were a variety of reasons given; the main one was that they couldn't handle the shiftwork and were geting so tired that they were making mistakes, some of them very serious ones.

Anyway, sorry to go on, but I hate it when people make comments like that with nothing to back it up. Some of us actually didn't want to strike and do actually feel sorry for the travelling public when issues like this get out of hand. And it doesn't help that the press like to "embellish" the facts when it suits them. With a man like Bob Crow representing the RMT union, I'm not surprised that the whole of London hates him. Unfortunately, this hatred often rubs off on frontline staff.

Replicant, I respect your reply. To be fair, I did not know people were forced to strike. If people wanted to work, surely there could have been more trains running on the Jubilee and Northern, as they were the only two running.

That being said, I agree shift work is hard. I have done it with Electrical Maintenance, you work much less hours for the week, though, but your sleep pattern gets messed up.

4 months training? I takes 4 years to become an electrician, and thats only with an apprenticeship (which is a bu**er to find) otherwise it can take up to 6 years. Shift work is involved, as I stated earlier, and if you make a mistake when working with live cables, you will go bang.

Random drug/drinking tests are always a threat, and most of the guys I work with are on 7 day weeks, so no going out.

But that is totally their choice. The construction industry is one of the two worst hit industries thanks to the recession. Nobody has a safe job and we would all love redundancy proof careers and secured pensions, but at a time like this, it just is not plausable to ask for such a demand and when things are rejected, to go on strike, causing hundreds of millions of pounds worth of damage to London alone.

I understand now that some people were forced to strike, but to the people who actually wanted to, I can only see them as being selfish.

And sorry if I offended you earlier, it wasn't meant personally.

i was going to be a swine and say that no one forces anyone into a job - if you dont like the working conditions...leave and get a different job...

yes, yes...that is being blinkered and mean spirited..but its also true

No offence taken; I was letting off steam about the fact that people tend to make generalisations about Tube workers based on what they read in the papers as opposed to solid facts. I wasn't having a personal dig at you, although I realised it may have read that way.

Regarding strike action, I have never and will never vote to strike for pay reasons. I have striked in the past but that was related to safety issues and management insisting that we run trains that had defective items of safety equipment related to braking. No one is forced to go on strike. However, to cross an RMT picket line if you are an RMT member is very bad form indeed and rightly frowned upon. Regarding the Northern line, I believe we have a particularly strong ASLEF membership (as opposed to RMT) amongst our drivers and so we were one of the better performing lines during the strike. I assume the same goes for the Jubilee.

If I had the inclination, aptitude and intelligence to become an electrician, I would probably have chosen that profession over what I am doing now. Four months training is obviously not as long as 4-6 years but you guys are messing with your lives if things go wrong so I guess you need to be sure! Having said that, I love my job for the good pay, benefits and conditions. Not to mention good promotional opportunities. (Do I sound like a recruitment campaign for LU?!) My last post just touched on some of the issues surrounding the job, of which you are obviously aware or have experienced yourself.

I could be slightly off the mark here, but I understand that of all the RMT members that were balloted for strike action, only about 30-40% of them actually returned their voting papers. The unions are a complicated bunch and there is a lot of internal politics going on behind the scenes which staff are not usually privy to, let alone the public. Things are not always as black and white as they might first appear. One final example...

Friday's Metro printed our salary, holiday entitlement and travel benefits on the front page. Anyone reading that would probably have thought, "All that just for driving a train? And the greedy b******s want more?!" I can't begin to tell you how misleading that article was, so I won't bother. But anyone who read it will think they know it all when in fact they know next to nothing. Classic case of don't believe everything you read in the papers.

IAIN wrote:i was going to be a swine and say that no one forces anyone into a job - if you dont like the working conditions...leave and get a different job...

yes, yes...that is being blinkered and mean spirited..but its also true

I agree to an extent. As you can see from my post above (unless you took one look at it and thought, "I can't be bothered to read that"!) I do actually like my job very much. Unfortunately, not everyone who hates their job has the ability, confidence, intelligence or formal qualifications (or all of the above) to make that move and get a new and better job. If that was the case, then there would be no one to do menial or low-paid, dead end jobs.

IAIN wrote:i was going to be a swine and say that no one forces anyone into a job - if you dont like the working conditions...leave and get a different job...

yes, yes...that is being blinkered and mean spirited..but its also true

Or you go to your union, I wanted to join the RMT but some silly rule about not working in transport stopped me and I ended up in unison

babyshanks wrote:Tube drivers have got it pretty easy, really. Yes, there job is important, but it's not exactly taxing, is it?

It boggles the mind that these people ignorantly want their demands met when they whole country is in the middle of a damn recession! Selfish, ignorant b******s, if you ask me.

That being said, the strike didn't affect me really. Jubilee Line was still running with minor delays, so I didn't loose any sleep/money over it.

I think that is a bit harsh..you make one vital mistake in that the job is not taxing.....

My dad is a train driver....Ok so he travels longer distance form home on his train but still works the same sort of hours as a tube driver.

I rarely get to see him as he is either working or sleeping getting ready for work....it has put tremendous stress on my paretns relationship and also means that he has missed most of me and my brothers growing up.

I would apologise for being arsy but I do not feel out of line here your comment was, however, way out of line.....train/tube drivers work very bloody hard and earn every penny of their wage packet.

Plus with your comment on training as an electrician....me and my (bio) dad fitted bathrooms and kitchins and the like.....We brought an electircian in to help with the shower....she plugged it into the circuit bored took 35 pound and went to the next job.

My (bio) dad has looked into electricians course as they a throwing them out at the moment....he could become a fully qualified electrician in just 1 year fully payed for by the state.

Electrician fair enough could be a hard job where if you make a mistake 1 or worst case scenario a single family find themselves in a pickle but if persei replicant or my dad messed up ......chiltern railways driver causes a crah for instant possibley 300+ dead on their way to work....Replicant (in no way is this a slur to how u do your job nor saying your bad at it) makes a mistake or does not get enough sleep and falls asleep again thats another 300 plus people going home in card boards boxes.

Be a little bit scincere and allot grateful that they give up their social lives for you to have yours and to be able to work...

I say three cheers for train/tube drivers: Hip Hip.....Hooray, Hip Hip.....Hooray, Hip Hip.....Hooray.

[/rantoff]

Smithy.

they are practically saints!

they do us all a massive favour afterall, after being forced at gunpoint to do the job...

everyones job is important if you ask me...

There's been some ignorant stuff said in this thread - mostly by people who look old enough to know better, yet not old enough to blame it on years of brain damage brought on by reading the Daily Mail in a rage. Clue up, lads.

I've got a shedload of respect for tube drivers, or anybody who works in a tube station for that matter, it's a totally thankless job and the only feedback you ever get from the public is negative. I've never seen somebody go up to an attendant or a driver in a tube station and say "you know what, you guys are really making the best of a bad situation here, there's a fiver, have a drink on me".

Frivolous striking is lame especially when the workforce don't want it, but don't then go and blame the workers when your train isn't running, because who's benefiting from that? Not you, and certainly not the workers - upon whom you depend on all those other days when your train is running - who are stuck between a rock and a hard place, thanks to feckless union bosses and Joe Average Londoner who thinks the tubes drive themselves by magic - and never once stops to consider that the tubes may actually be driven by real people with families and social lives.
(Can you tell I don't live in London any more?)

i dont think tube drivers or anyone else deserves our thanks for being gainfully employed really..

as i said previously, everyone's job is important in some way...

i wonder how many people have gone and thanked a cleaner?! I bet no one..they are the invisible workers..doing the jobs some people deem beneath them...

you could say that people who hand out dole money deserve just as much, if not more respect...as if they didnt work all those on benefits would have to go without, no emergency loans..no money for kids food and so on and so on...but i bet no one thanks them either...

before we call people ignorant or whatever else, lets really examine people's contribution to society and the job they do - lets not put people on undeserved pedestals...we all have a part to play I'm sure you'd agree...