Hands up who wants play the London Underground song tomorrow?

Opening the barriers doesn’t necessarily work here, unlike France, because the drivers, the maintenance crews and the station staff are not necessarily all in the same union. That would only work if it is the station staff on strike – not maintenance crews as here.

What I don’t get is how striking is going to help in this situation – normally you strike to prevent a factory/service/company maintaining it’s output – thereby stopping it earning money. But this strike is over the fear that Metronet employees are going to lose their jobs – a company aleady in meltdown is not going to be affected by a strike. Or am I missing something?

In any case, some of us don’t have the luxury of striking if we are in danger of losing our jobs. Many corporate contracts specifically preclude strike action. (Can you tell I’m annoyed at the prspect of this strike? ;) )

Posted over 2 years ago by CravenMaven

I just came on to rant (albeit gently) about this so your thread is timely. As I struggle from the City to the Oval on Wednesday, am I likely to think “those poor RMT members: forced to make such a dramatic statement by inconveniencing the three million Londoners who like me wish to use the tube today”?

Posted over 2 years ago by theoclarke

The London Underground song is so 2005.

Posted over 2 years ago by Carla

I’m with the workers on this one. Just because some corporate cuntlets can’t budget properly, why should tube workers lose their jobs?

Buses are great anyway, except those bendy ones.

Posted over 2 years ago by purpaboo

because unfortunately, purpaboo, that’s the way a healthy economy works. I don’t like the fact that plenty of hard-working people face losing their jobs, either, but if Metronet is to be saved, where is the money going to come from? My taxes and yours. We don’t even get a say on how that money would be used. Ultimately, the money I worked my arse off to earn goes to line the pockets of some inept Metronet senior execs. Great.

But the issue here is bigger than a company going bust – there is something inherently wrong in using a private company to run a public service. Say a company making TVs goes bust – the TV making industry does not fall apart, there are plenty more companies making TVs. But if the money behind the Tube disappears, it’s not like we have another Tube network just waiting to take on the workforce and customers.

Tonight, my job is a lot more secure than the average tube worker. But when the next recession comes, the situation will be entirely reversed. It’s swings and roundabouts.

Posted over 2 years ago by CravenMaven

I must admit that there’s another side of this that always annoys me too. Whenever there’s a strike like this, the City usually announces how many millions of pounds it loses per day. However, whenever there’s any talk of perhaps having City companies providing financial support their arms grow shorter, the pockets grow longer and all their money seems to disappear – usually to tax-free offshore havens.

But what do I know?

Posted over 2 years ago by pottytime

But when the next recession comes, the situation will be entirely reversed. It’s swings and roundabouts

That’s the trouble with seasonal work.

Posted over 2 years ago by BraveNewMalden

”...hard-working people face losing their jobs”

I think there probably are some hard working people in Metronet, somewhere, but whenever I’ve walked past a tube station in the middle of the night all the Metronet people have been sat around outside the station with cups of tea and takeaways. That doesn’t look like hard work to me…

Posted over 2 years ago by AppleDave

Like others, I usually side with the strikers in most industrial disputes (on the basis that between workers and management, management are more likely to be evil). However, on this strike I have very little sympathy with the tube workers; for the following reasons:

1. Ken/TfL have promised no jobs will be lost, no pensions lost etc as a result of Metronet’s collapse. This has satisfied two unions – why is the third union not satisfied?

2. Striking when you know there are redundancies is fair enough. Striking because you think there might be redundancies is an over-reaction.

3. The Tube is not going to stop being maintained simply because Metronet are not in the picture. Therefore there will still be employment. Working in a different sector, when a private company producing work for a public organisation went bust, the employees simply were shifted on to the public organisation’s books until it was resolved.

4. Ken/TfL is not going to let the Tube fail. It’s the same argument why privitising the railways is a stupid idea… no matter how badly the train companies do the government will always find the money to keep the trains operating.

I do think that we, as members of the public, should go and prevent RMT staff from getting to work (forcibly if needs be) and if/when they complain then it makes a mockery of their right to strike.

CravenMaven – I might be wrong, but wasn’t one of the first laws Labour brought in in 1997 made it illegal for companies to prevent you striking, as long as you followed the correct rules. AFAIR I know, only the police and the army are legally prevented from striking. That’s why the Prison Officers went on strike for the first time last week.

Olly

Posted over 2 years ago by olib

I was going to put up some long reply as others have done, however, after my journey home last night I can only say that the RMT and Bow Crowe are a bunch of fucking tossers.

Posted over 2 years ago by villageidiot

I’m with you villageidiot – it’s chaos out there today. The RMT are flexing their muscles at our expense. They’re reminding us how important the tube is to the health of London which really fucking irks me as it’s holding us all to ransom. Nobody’s job is gauranteed any more, that’s the world we live in and the unions are out of touch with it. Bullying us all won’t bring the tube back in to the public sector eitehr.

Good to see so many cyclists though – shame the cycleways aren’t a little wider.

Posted over 2 years ago by logomomo

I phoned my boss this morning and after a little chat re: lack of tubes, he agreed to let me work from home for the rest of the week (Harrah). He on the other hand works from home 99% of the time, only ever see him at rare team meetings, then usually he only puts on an appearance if his boss comes along.

So here I am sitting at home, then got a call from my boss to say that the job I applied for about a month ago is no more but there is another post on offer but I’ll have to do an interview for it. More news by Friday.

Goes from bad to worse.

Posted over 2 years ago by cobo04

because unfortunately, purpaboo, that’s the way a healthy economy works.

Indeed, CravenMaven. And the money is going to come out of our pockets whichever way the wind blows. No biggie. I was just saying that I’m with the workers on this one.

Yes, it’s VERY inconvenient for us. It took me 2½ hours to get from Oxford Street to Stoke Newington yesterday evening. But what really gets my goat is people muttering “bloody tube workers”.

Ken may have “promised” that no jobs will be lost – and I do trust Ken; he’s a man of his word, and a man of action – but while all the other useless management cuntlets are involved I would be on strike until I have that promise in writing.

I blame the greedy -fuckers- Tories who set the whole thing up in the first place, and Gordon’s PFI nonsense hasn’t helped either. There’s some blame for Ken too; this was a train smash that we saw coming for months.

Rant over … I feel better now :-)

Oh, and Olib, I’m pretty sure prison service workers aren’t allowed to strike either, hence the big twist in Jack Straw’s knickers.

jack straws pants ew

Posted over 2 years ago by purpaboo

On tenterhooks.

Posted over 2 years ago by BraveNewMalden

BNM – I’m afraid your comment has gone sailing at great speed right over the peak of my cranium… Are tenterhooks something to do with Jack Straw’s twisted knickers? Should the residents of Hampstead Heath know about this?

Posted over 2 years ago by pottytime

olib, weird – I didn’t start working til 2000, and I’m almost sure that caveat was in the contract then. Dunno if it’s in the one I’m working under now, probably not.

Posted over 2 years ago by CravenMaven

He’s waiting for the next update, Potty.

Duh.

Posted over 2 years ago by Carla

purbapoo: The Tories made it illegal for prison officers to strike in 1994. In 1997, Labour revoked that law but came to a written agreement with the POA that they wouldn’t strike. If they wanted to change that they had to give one year’s notice. Details.

As I understand it, the POA were annoyed that annoucement to implementation of proposed changes was going to happen in under one year, effectively meaning they couldn’t register their protest. They argued that this was unfair on the part of the government.

The government went to court; the judge sided with them and ruled that the strike was illegal. The POA disagreed, but called off the strike and officers went back to work.

Posted over 2 years ago by olib

Yeah, I’m with Olib. Part of me thinks that the rest of us are just a bit narked that we can’t strike like them.

@Cobo04: Thanks for the update on your job.

Shut up though?. On threads, in life, on here, just shut up. Your comment is irrelevant to the topic. But generally just shut up. No one cares.

Posted over 2 years ago by Bagman

@Bagman – why the nastiness towards Cobo? Was your journey today shit like the rest of us?

And who cares about your comments about threads, life, the universe or whatever?

If all you can do is flame, find somewhere else to be incendiary.

yah boo to bad rubbish

Posted over 2 years ago by pottytime