Friday 30 July 2021

You Might Have Finally Overreached...

A tube strike is set to go ahead in August over plans to scrap the Night Tube train drivers’ pay grade after negotiations broke down between the union and London Underground.
The changes would mean that instead of having a separate role for Night Tube train drivers, all drivers would be expected to work a combination of normal and night shifts.

So? Conditions change in jobs all the time. Either accept them, or find another. 

Strike action was first proposed earlier this month but the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which represents tube drivers, has now confirmed it will go ahead next month. The union has asked all drivers not to book into work after midday for 24 hours on four separate dates - August 3, 5, 24 and 26.
But this might not have the effect it would have had pre-Covid. 

Everyone who can do so has now proved they can work from home. They've been doing it for a year and a half. So four days isn't much of a stretch.

We've all been hoping that automation will break the stranglehold the unions have held on commuters. Maybe a tiny virus, and the effect it has had on working patterns, will do so instead?

6 comments:

Doonhamer said...

I remember an appropriate song.
Think it was London Underground by The Jam.
Found it again by web searching. Hilarious,.
It is probably a HATE Crime to listen to it.
But please risk it.

Doonhamer said...

London Underground Song on youtube duckduck it.

Mudplugger said...

It's bizarre that whilst Google and Tesla etc are capable of creating self-driving cars to handle the manifold varieties of open road conditions, yet London Underground, whose vehicles cannot go outside a severely restricted area of operation and the operating environment is closely controlled, has not got round to replacing its bolshie drivers with a chip. If the Docklands Light Railway can do it, why not the Circle Line etc?
It's not the drivers' fault, it's the management's fault for not replacing them.

John M said...

Meh, it's tome to sack the lot of them and automate the whole system properly.

Stonyground said...

The print union used to be a bunch of obnoxious beligerants. It was such fun to watch when word processors made them all obsolete overnight.

JuliaM said...

"I remember an appropriate song.
Think it was London Underground ..."


Ah, yes! That was a real classic, very cleverly adapted.

"...has not got round to replacing its bolshie drivers with a chip."

They have on the Docklands Light Railway. But that was built from the ground up, I suspect refashioning the crumbling and quite old Tube tunnels and stations is quite different. And probably far too costly.

"The print union used to be a bunch of obnoxious beligerants. It was such fun to watch when word processors made them all obsolete overnight."

It'd be nice if they found the spellcheck and grammar check functions though!