The Tube Drivers Strike.

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Originally Posted by red lead ted

This is one thread I regret I missed and I would just like to throw my penny's worth in, The tube drivers may be well paid quite possibly not much in the basic pay between them and our M P s as in basic wage, But I would like to add as someone who worked on the local railway here in Liverpool as a train guard for a couple of years, Just like the tube drivers these guys are on rotating shifts early and late a week about. They are given a rest day not asked what day they want off but told as so every driver gets a weekend every few weeks with his family don't forget the trains don't stop Friday to Monday like most jobs. If you think about it lets say they start there early turns on a Monday 4 to 5 am............They will have finished there late turn the previous week 12 midnight or later on the Sunday morning, If they start there late turn Sunday evening lets say 5pm they will have finished there early turn Saturday morning maybe 1 to 4 pm. Most of them would have worked there rest day because of driver sickness or whatever so in effect they are never away from the job it was the same when my old man got me a job on the Liverpool northern line here in Liverpool when I finished working in London after the sea for a few years. I don't think you will find a job anywhere in the country with such unsociable hours the same as that. Now love them or hate them they have a strong union, They do a job that you cant just replace overnight because its a very unique position to hold and takes years to learn. And without causing a storm if our M P s can take a £6,000 + a year pay rise can you blame them, Been there and done it Terry :rulez:

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I,m afraid that there are people around who don't understand what it is to put in a full day.Your union leader talks about work/life hasn't got a clue.When I first started selling insurance my day started 8am and usually finished around 10pm and weekends were usually an 8 hour day.Anyone who was an officer on clan boats or harrisons around 1966 docking in Manchester or ellesmere port might remember the salesman from abbey life calling weekends trying to sell investment plans.Iwas on commission only and had a wife 2 kids and a mortgage and no union.
This is not a unique situation.Ask any self employed tradesman or shopkeeper about work/life and he,ll tell you about morgages and overdraughts.
Unsociable hours.Your talking crap.If its unsociable hours they get extra wages and that's why they do it.Nobody pays businessmen overtime and if by good fortune and hard work they become successful or rich people like hard cor e union men vilify them as leeches on the poor.
Somebody should ask a union official if he would take out a 2nd mortgage on his house to support the strike.Some chance.
Try joining the real world.

In 1966 I was ch mate on 101.76 per month and 27.26 pounds a month in lieu of overtime, which in those days was considered a quite decent wage. So have no axe to grind. However those wages and salary was obtained by union negotiation. In 1986 I was on 32 pounds a day with no union and no recourse to such, you cant say why take the job then there wasn't any other, it was that or the dole, which works out to about 11,000 a year with little or no leave. With a union, on union agreed wages the salary would of been one for one and 20,000 a year. Which I had been getting 2 years prior. One can only discount the union as a non entity when it is proven they have done no good for who they represent. I agree with most that the UK seamans union was a sham, during the seamans strike of 66 a lot of seamen didn't want, and to my mind came back financially worse off. It was a political strike and fell right into the hands of the closet conservative Wilson, and this to my mind gave him all the excuse he needed to start to dismantle the British Registry. Myself if in an industry like shipping which was huge at one time I would prefer to see a Union present and not have a shipowner to pay what he liked, have been there and done that and believe me it is abused. The five years I spent under foreign flag was a different ball game as one had to negotiate ones own wage, this would not really have been feasible in an industry such as the uk with over 4000 ships. Unions without the bully boy tactics which are always amplified are a necessary evil if that is what one considers they are, myself I would prefer to have and take my chances with the evil part. Cheers JS

If you work for your self you have to work very unsociable hours and days, no one pays you overtime or bonus. If you don't you will go out of business..
When I bought Anne a flower shop, when I retired from Seafaring at 63, I was working with her until 2 and 3 in the morning and still had to be back to open the shop at 8 am, On Mothers day or Valentines day we used to work up to 78 hours none stop, three days and nights, we would stop at 6 am go home , a shower , a quick breakfast and back working before 8 am. sometimes a lot of funerals would come in from several undertakers we would have to work night and day to get the orders out, on top of that we had weddings most weekends to make up and deliver, We had to work Sundays to make up the funeral displays for the Monday morning funerals.
I worked harder in that shop than I ever did at sea and I worked for free to help her.
So some weeks we never saw the house in day light and never sat down to a meal, just a bag of chips from the near by chippy.
then the undertakers next door would ask me to give them a hand lifting a corpse out of the van and into the preparation room, some extremely heavy.
So it is not just the train driver who thinks he has a hard time. Many other trades have to work hard without any time off..and not too much of a return as it is a very competitive business.
Brian

Brian hours are immaterial at sea these days, it is a normal 84 hour a week and can and do, get called out on top of this. The salary is supposed to cover all this. Whether it does or not in what is left of this supposedly mysterious ghost fleet of British flag ships remaining I wouldn't know, or even care, however the last 11 years of my seagoing career , which even though was mainly on Australian agreements apart from a couple of jobs I took outside of, on Malaysian ships, as regards the Australian agreements as said before were very good at the time. The Foreign ships I made my own arrangements, and would certainly not leave myself out of pocket. Most foreign crews will work round the clock if necessary without extra pay. They are very cheap as regards UK standards and are obviously a target for the Employer. So nowadays you have reduced manpower in most cases with longer hours with ships extremely cheap to run as compared in byegone eras. There is no one works harder than some of these foreign crews and are a hairs breadth above slave labour on some ships. The master is still considered the ruler of the roost and is like going back I should imagine to the days of sail. Never heard anyone refer to section so and so of the merchant shipping act of 1875 or whatever, was hire and fire and more than likely still is. As you know I was brought up in Runcimans a Tyneside tramp company and from what I saw it was the companys policy and hopes that disagreements on board the likes of the mates and engineers which some called oil and water, would carry on and so keep any arguments with the company as a long distant alternative and keep any pressure about conditions away from them. I know this as when I attained the dizzy heights of a senior officer , the crew and personnel manager confided to me in his cups. This is exactly what is happening here those for and against unions, Sir Walter would have loved it and said keep it up lads. JS

in my business i worked on average a 68 hour week....my people worked 0n average without overtime 36 hours ...that was the way it had to be to keep one step ahead......not including work at home etc.....plus a mortgage on my home and my factory.....for some 30 years......my people were non union they didnt want it the textile union was rubbish when any one said they wanted a union......i told them to eff off.....i told them on there interveiw...it was not a union shop ......if the company did well i took them on awaydays and to the best resaurants in leeds ......i bought kitchens for top workers .....car insurance ......and a good xmas bonus.....i always had a waiting list of persons wishing for work......i am not a saint but the price i paid over the years was not easy.....often on export jobs i would pay double wages and a day off with pay for my people to work through to two or three in the morning ...supply them with kentucky fried or curry for supper.....when the job was done and packed i would then go with my driver to london to the export ware house then drive back to the factory that was what i call a lack of family life ....nobody paid me for unsocial hours.....i knew i had it right when a man rang me from baker st marks and sparks and said they wanted to buy one of my companies and give me a contract .....it would have meant nothing to me or my people ...they would have sacked me and then the people and bought it abroad.....no unions for me i was a steward at sea but a captain of my own ship .....and just got on with it....tube workers holding millions to ransom ...sack the bloody lot.....iwould have given up all rather than be held to ransom.....cappy

with time to come the tubes will end up automated like a drone if these people hold the country to ransom......it has happened in every industry ...you cannot stop the work of the country or its people ....they will be bleating then ......and like people have seeen through the labour party and now blame the ex leaders brown bliar balls ...they will blame the unions ...if there are any left after the labour election for a new leader ....i wish i had paid 3 quid to vote for the hard left front runner then they would have gone in a very short time to the same place as the gas mantle fitters....finished for good

They will become automated in time regardless of peoples jobs. JS

They have it in Singapore, trains with No Driver and No Staff. operated by a computer, a computer is not a Union man.
Brian

A few points I think we should all remember lads,
If they strike it will be for better pay and conditions, I seem to remember Seaman trying for the same thing.
Going away to sea as we have all said was a way of life rather than a job, Which we all agreed on.
Why should a working man thank his lucky stars that he has a well paid job, If that was the case the world over it would be a better place to reside.
In this country trains on any track being automated without a driver or train crew will never happen, We are to slow to keep up with the rest of the world in rolling stock and track and signal technology.
We still have semaphore signals on main line services, Way out of date.
Some of our rolling stock is that old it cant accommodate the level of passengers that want to use it.
The train drivers themselves have a responsibility to obtain and digest every week or few days any maintenance as it would result in speed or single track working.
Has anyone ever took a look at the rules and regulation's test that these guys have not only sat the test but are responsible to keep abreast of.
If the railways hadn't been sold off like most British institutions and still run by British Rail it would be a better service with less disruption than train drivers will ever be responsible of.
Lastly if they don't like the job get someone else who does your normal driver these days will have done 4 years as a guard before he can consider a move up front. Afraid the tube drivers have everyone the government included by the short and curly,s I remember a lot of other industries being in the same position at one time, They had a union that backed them Regards lads Terry. :rulez:

The Union are on to a hide to nothing I believe and instead of encouraging and working with the new proposals from Boris they are effectively talking themselves out of a job. How the drivers etc can not see this for themselves is beyond me.

Like Cappy, Sut, Ivan, Capt' and others on here who were self employed they get the bigger picture!
You don't work you don't get paid...It really is that simple. Family life and home is held together by the partners, sometimes for a few months sometimes years a bit like a seaman's wife. Being self employed isn't for everyone I know that, what with all the added worry of overheads, bank loans, the employee's rights etc etc, running the company no matter how big or small, the over riding responsibility is the same ALL YOURS. Family time rarely comes in to it, eg when our youngest was 3 she was sitting in the car with hubby when she piped up out the blue 'I hate you daddy' he replied 'surely not?' 'I do, I do' Turns out that when he WAS HOME she felt he took me away from her and she wasn't best pleased.;) Our oldest daughter 34, still has the need to communicate with her dad every single day no matter where he is in the world and our son said in his twenties he felt he had missed out because dad was always away and it was me who ferried them around here, there and everywhere including holidays. It felt like a one parent family most of the time. Moot points I know to some here.

Only the taxi and bus companies are thriving on these strike days along with the restaurants and hotels charging even more extortionate rates for those trapped overnight. To heck with Joe public and business folk and tourists they can naff off. Mr/Ms tube driver and their Unions want more than £1000. for a 30 hour week for sitting on their derriere's....Nice try..... what planet are they on? Their family time will soon be enhanced when when their jobs are automated:rolleyes: