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Does the rest of the UK really need almost continuous news cover about a London transport strike? I guarantee that the rest of the country have got the message. In depth cover of people using buses, is there nothing else going on?
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Half of them at least could have walked in the time they spent queuing for buses.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 9 Jul 15 at 09:40
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>> Does the rest of the UK really need almost continuous news cover about a London
>> transport strike? I guarantee that the rest of the country have got the message.
>>
Transport strike affecting twice the population of Scotland, makes it kind of important. Haven't seen a news programme this morning but the papers I have read (paper and online) have plenty other things, mainly leading on the budget.
Don't think its particularly overdone.
But then I am working from home as I can't sensibly get in to London and being in IT can work just as well from home anyway.
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Just had a look at the report as I first heard about it last night. I was surprised how many turned out and voted in a favour of a strike. Sounds like people's backs are up I wonder how long it will go on? Seems to have affected a lot of people down south and those who go to London.
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>> Transport strike affecting twice the population of Scotland,
and in this very lopsided country, the population of its main economic hub. The whole place is effectively half-closed for 24 hours, costing the taxpayer a billion or two (billions are the new millions).
This would have appalled my younger self, but I sometimes think strikes of that sort should be illegal as they are in totalitarian countries.
Up the workers! (sometimes in one sense, sometimes in the other). If you can't get your head round ambivalence or contradiction, you can never understand this country.
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There is obviously no love lost between the underground management team and the workers.Union leaders.
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Clearly they are in an excellent position to hold London to ransom and fully exploit that position.
Pity the Police have no right to strike.
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Would it make a difference if they did fullchat? Not that man coppers about these days.
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>> Clearly they are in an excellent position to hold London to ransom and fully exploit
>> that position.
>>
>> Pity the Police have no right to strike.
>>
Why would it be a good idea for the police to have the right to strike?
I can't think of anything much worse!
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>> Why would it be a good idea for the police to have the right to strike?
They do have it in France. I went there once during a fuzz strike and it didn't seem to make any difference, apart from the fuzz doing the demos instead of suppressing them. There was no sign of a slide towards anarchy (of course the CRS and elements of the army were lurking down side streets just in case).
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My point simply is that the tube drivers are treat with kid gloves. The Police on the other hand continue to get a good kicking and there is sweet FA they can do. And its not all about pay and conditions. There is a lot more at stake.
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>> My point simply is that the tube drivers are treat with kid gloves. The Police
>> on the other hand continue to get a good kicking and there is sweet FA
>> they can do. And its not all about pay and conditions. There is a lot
>> more at stake.
>>
Isn't this a comparatively recent thing?
Coppers that I know of various ages tell me that until about 15 years ago they loved the life. After that they hated it, but stuck it out for the pension. Did things change radically round about the year 2000, give or take?
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>> Coppers that I know of various ages tell me that until about 15 years ago
>> they loved the life. After that they hated it, but stuck it out for the
>> pension. Did things change radically round about the year 2000, give or take?
>>
Much the same applies to the military.
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"Much the same applies to the military."
......... and pretty much every other job, from what I hear.
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>> ......... and pretty much every other job, from what I hear.
Certainly feels that way anywhere in the public sector but then the grass was always greener in the past.
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>> >> ......... and pretty much every other job, from what I hear.
>>
>> Certainly feels that way anywhere in the public sector but then the grass was always
>> greener in the past.
Certainly from a pension perspective. Colleague has just retired. His final salary pension had a massive pot. 25% tax free, the rest to provide a pension. If I work here as long as he did, my own pension will have approximately 5-10% of that in it.
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That's the point, there is a completely different attitude to life and work these days. I don't know that many youngsters, but very few of those I know have had the luxury of looking for and obtaining a long term career position, even maybe until they collect their pension, which was more the norm back in the day. They are looking for a job in the first instance, no matter how well qualified. There is little employer/employee loyalty these days, and vice versa as a result.
IT promised us a shorter working hours and more leisure time. One thing I think it has caused is a move towards everything becoming a process, thus taking away the skill and experience requirements. Maybe less so in some jobs.
Globalisation, enabled by IT, also played a part - even very skilled jobs can now be carried out remotely, in the cheapest possible location.
Not sure how long you've been retired but today's workplace is very different from when I started work in the mid 70s, in many many ways.
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Work, and the work life balance did dramatically shift after 2000. Certainly in the IT game. Since 2008 It has become a segmented global commoditised market, with the subsequent downward spiral in skills and benefits.
No-one now joins a company with an eye on a long career, skills building, experience, progression, promotion, the pension is down the pan anyway, employer mobility and ship jumping is the norm, only the services are exempt from this (Civil, Police, Fire and NH)
Employers now actively encourage employee (sorry my mistake, we became resources in about 2001) churn, with active policies to replace 10% annually (its called a high performance culture) but all it does is destroy employee good will and loyalty.
If I need money, Ill go out and get myself a zero hours contract job, my loyalty will be non existent, my goodwill wont exist, my performance will be barely adequate, and I will drop them in the sheet with nary a heartbeat if something better comes along.
I call it the f*** you employer culture.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 10 Jul 15 at 09:59
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>> I call it the f*** you employer culture.
>>
I don't know anyone now who openly states an objective of firing the bottom 10% every year, but that was indeed the GE approach under Jack Welch. I had a lot of contact with GE Capital in the 90's; managers were expected to apply that to their teams. After two or three years of this, in a reasonably stable team, they were having to argue their way out of firing good people; none of whom were particularly happy in their work when their main motivation was to not be in the 10%.
Globalisation has a lot to do with it. Employers have a lot of options if they are minded to look at them. In IT especially, I know a few people who have been "outsourced" more than once - they have a job for a year or two with the new supplier while the overseas team get the hang of it, and then they are out. Sometimes they return when it all starts going wrong, or the claimed savings that earned some long-gone chancer a big bonus fail to materialise.
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>> I call it the f*** you employer culture.
Well they hide it well here, although it's no secret that there are policies to get rid of under-performing employees. On the positive side, they seem to want to help you build a career, offering advice/training on how to get promoted, become a mentor, improve management skills (if that's what you want) etc. Then there's the 'great place to work' scheme, which sounds corny (they're American!) but means there's a monthly budget for going down the pub or whatever; last time it was a barge trip down the Kennet & Avon with a buffet lunch and drink.
So while there may well be a lot of that culture around, I don't think it exists everywhere. I'd happily recommend this place to anyone with the appropriate skills looking for a career. Especially if they give me their CV to pass on and I get a nice recruitment bonus :)
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must say that my experience is the same as Focusless, although I work for French company.
They can be quite bureaucratic in some respects, but they do have a desire to have a happy workforce, and under-performers are usually "redeployed" into more suitable roles rather than fired.
I'm also a customer of GE in my current role, and they really can be brutal. Interestingly one of the companies I deal with was disposed of by GE and now trades under a new name, but has a lot of the existing staff. They are all much happier under the new regime
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Looks like the talks have gone nowhere. 2 more strike dates for station staff. Drivers haven't got a date yet but it's said they won't cross picket lines. Seems the issue is around the hours and shifts they are expected to work and the money in compensation for this.
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funnily enough - they have moved from a work/life balance and safety to "how much you gonna pay us"
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 11 Aug 15 at 18:43
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While I was in London last week and suffering the strike media coverage one guest paper reviewer got it right. He said words to the effect of "What is the union on? Bus and lorry drivers are paid less and have more responsibility, train drivers only have to start and stop, don't have other road users to dodge, and if they get it wrong there are automatic overrides to stop the train". The traffic did not seem any worse than usual for school holiday time even with the strike.
Glad to be back in civilisation now. :-)
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 11 Aug 15 at 19:01
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I don't think junior hospital doctors are very happy with their pay differential to tube drivers either.
No shortage of tube drivers apparently.
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Perhaps time for the US air traffic-controller solution? Sack the lot and train Poles and Bulgarians instead.
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>> Perhaps time for the US air traffic-controller solution? Sack the lot and train Poles and
>> Bulgarians instead.
>>
My London resident Brother in Law and myself came to a similar conclusion.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 11 Aug 15 at 19:23
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Here's my theory.... Cross Rail will be more automated... The beginning of the end for these high salaries for tube drivers. Their own fault.
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>> Here's my theory.... Cross Rail will be more automated... The beginning of the end for
>> these high salaries for tube drivers. Their own fault.
Cross rail is not "the tube" It runs on Network Rail infrastructure. They can't even get the overhead catenary up in time, and keep the current signalling up reliably, let alone run automated trains.
Oh and the Jubilee line and rolling stock is already driverless ready. And has been for about 5 years.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 11 Aug 15 at 20:54
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Why do people keep mentioning the high salaries of the drivers? Good luck to them it won't last.The drivers know that eventually the tube will be a 24hr service with split shifts and not necessary the same money.
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I'd assumed (incorrectly) Cross Rail would be run as part of the Underground. I suppose the clue was in the title Cross Rail.
But you know where I was going with this with the Jubilee line response. The Tube Drivers will find themselves redundant at some point. This is not how to protect their positions.
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Zero>>Oh and the Jubilee line and rolling stock is already driverless ready. And has been for about 5 years.
So why won't the Jubilee line be running during the strike? (The DLR will be, and that has always been driverless; mid 80s, was it?)
In 1967, HM The Queen drove the first Victoria Line train. Which is to say, the train drove itself and HM pressed the 'door open' and 'door close' buttons. It just goes to show what a closed shop it is that no tube driver working today was working at that point.
Central Line, too.
This is what the Guardian says (caution: contains views that may raise blood pressure).
www.theguardian.com/uk/davehillblog/2012/feb/29/boris-johnson-driverless-underground-trains
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>>This is what the Guardian says (caution: contains views that may raise blood pressure).
Oh dear, I'd better not read it then.
:}
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>> This is what the Guardian says (caution: contains views that may raise blood pressure).
>>
>> www.theguardian.com/uk/davehillblog/2012/feb/29/boris-johnson-driverless-underground-trains
>>
An extract from the Guardian article:-
"As for making it as a means of mentioning Ken Livingstone's good relationship with ASLEF and the TSSA - though not the RMT – in the hope of winning votes, perhaps Boris should think again. There have been many more Tube strikes under him than when Ken was mayor. People might start thinking that's not a bad reason for making Ken mayor again".
Which perhaps begs the question - Is the increase in Tube strikes under Boris compared with Ken, entirely coincidental?
I mean, there wouldn't be any political element there, would there?
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>> Zero>>Oh and the Jubilee line and rolling stock is already driverless ready. And has been
>> for about 5 years.
>>
>> So why won't the Jubilee line be running during the strike? (The DLR will be,
>> and that has always been driverless; mid 80s, was it?)
Because there wont be any other staff on duty.
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>> funnily enough - they have moved from a work/life balance and safety to "how much
>> you gonna pay us"
>>
I think that had been the message all along, we don't want too many night/weekend shifts, now that's inevitable they want compensation to freak with the hours.
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Is it me or are posts dissappearing again?
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London again. - Bromptonaut
