I'm not so sure about 'theyre all on very wealthy income' type comments just as I'm not convinced by 'theyre all lazy' comments. Like a lot of workers who are maligned they have had their real income eroded over time for the last 13 years. I would suggest the context of that should at least be acknowledged. They aren't knee- jerk strikes, just as health workers aren't knee-jerk. There's a bigger picture here about income and wealth which is totally ignored by simple comments like 'theyre all lazy'.
That's why they're striking mate. They've had their pay reviewed for several years and its constantly been eroded. Surely, a better starting point would be to look at the structure of the rail industry overall, including CEO wages (cos as we know ALL CEO's are lazy bar stewards).
Why is the forum getting infested with braindead trolls lately? Coincides with the 6 week holidays...
When you have train drivers, rail support staff, nurses, ‘junior’ doctors (and now even senior doctors), teachers - all repeatedly going on strike, all talking about staff numbers and working conditions as well as pay, then you need to look somewhere else for blame for them having had enough. I can imagine paramedics and firefighters aren’t far off either. Yes it’s a pain in the ar.se when the trains are off, schools are closed, hospitals are on vital and emergency care only - but do you think they down tools on a whim? Do you think all the nurses want to walk off their wards? The rail workers are concerned about pay yeah but also safety and the service provided to people. Lazy? What is lazy is your swallowing of the media rhetoric about the strikers without actually looking at the state of the country. I suppose the miners were lazy were they? Fighting to save their whole industry and retain jobs? Ten years after the miners strike, pretty much all the pits had been closed. Most of them in the few years immediately after the strike. Grimethorpe was named as the poorest settlement in the whole of the U.K. - and a fair few mining areas still sit below the poverty line now, never really recovering. This situation is different today, but do you really think the government aren’t trying to further destroy the rail industry they’ve already ruined? Kill the nhs completely? Never overlook conservative policy and the destruction of workers pay, rights, safety and future. Never overlook them when looking at the crumbling nhs, failing rail service, increasing cost of everything whilst wages stagnate. In the past thirteen years they’ve been in power, the highest earning and richest in society have experienced no real change other than continued wealth increase, whilst the working classes and even the middle have seen real terms pay, living conditions and prospects, the availability of public services eroded exponentially. Meanwhile the agenda driven media spout out their drivel and a lot of the pinched middle still lap it up and vote for them; some closer to the lower end of the economic scale voted for them thanks to another agenda driven frenzy around brexit and immigration. Conditions of living, healthcare provision and policing for example, are at an all time low. The future prospects look worse for my kids now than they did for me as I hit adulthood in the late nineties early 2000’s. It must be one of the first times ever that the next generation don’t look to certainly have a brighter future than the ones that went before. Who has caused all of that? Contributed to it? Overlooked the destruction of everything for the benefit of the privileged few only? I’ve yet to see a strike in recent years which when you scratch the surface and look at the reasons, that I don’t support. The problem is, with attitudes such as yours Peter, and you are sadly not in a small minority, the chances of success are reduced greatly.
Must have took a while to write all that!! I am not referring to NHS, firefighters, junior doctors and who ever else you referred to. my initial post has been about rail. The last few strikes have been purely down to drivers and their pay. Train drivers are in a total separate bracket to nhs, rail support staff, junior doctors as looked after very well
The RMT are the union that are on strike. While *some* members are drivers, the majority are ticket inspectors, station staff, cleaners, maintenance and the rest. These strikes are not for "drivers and their pay" ASLEF - who are operating an overtime ban but are not currently striking - are the union with drivers and they are protesting about pay (and conditions). Its only been a year. You might have learnt the basics by now. https://news.sky.com/story/train-st...rvices-affected-by-industrial-action-12909916
I don't know why u all respond, he doesn't want to understand the issues, he's a childish troll, posting summat controversial and looking for bites, successfully.
Brilliant, brilliant post. I can't like it enough. It proves it is possible to break down the mess we're in quite concisely. But still folk won't listen, or they'll blame the wrong target for it all. I'd love to hear more of what you say from those who can influence change and stop, like you say, living standards getting worse for the young and workers of the future.
The strike is not primarily about drivers pay (it's about conditions), besides there's plenty of rail staff who aren't drivers on significantly less. Also many striking will be losing money. .
It has been pointed out already but the majority of the train strikes have been from the RMT, who have relatively few drivers in their number. They are ticket office staff, station staff, conductors, catering, cleaning. They aren’t ‘wealthy’ in any way. ASLEF, the drivers union, I believe did have a strike but are currently just on a work to rule, with no overtime for a week upcoming. The rail strikes, whilst it is a small factor, have relatively little to do with drivers pay.