Is Bob Crow Going to the Olympics?
I suspect that if he does go, he won’t be too popular after holding the organisers to ransom over extra payments to his members.
Unless of course Ken wins the London Mayor election and he’ll be a guest of honour, along with a lot of other strange people.
The Ridiculous Tube Strikes
The RMT is calling a series of strikes on the Tube over the next few weeks. If ever there was a ridiculous set of strikes it is these.
The facts are a bit cloudy but it would appear that two drivers have been sacked. Transport for London says one thing and the RMT says another. Apparently, the cases of the two men are going before an Employment Tribunal.
So surely, all parties should cool off until the results of that!
The interesting things to read are the comments on the various news items on the BBC, The Times and other serious media. I have searched extensively, and can’t find any comment in favour of the drivers actions. As several thousand of them voted for the strikes, surely one or two could put a few words together to explain why they are striking.
In my view this strike and some of the others that have proceeded it is not about the issues, but is a result of the fact that the RMT has seen the writing on the wall of the future and doesn’t like it.
At present on the Victoria and Jubilee lines, the drivers effectively close the doors when everything is clear and start the train in the station and then it proceeds automatically until the next one. The Victoria line has had this method of operation since 1967. So surely, all lines will be updated to work this way in the next few years.
So in effect drivers will not drive the train anymore, but will effectively be train captains managing the train and its passengers. Obviously in an emergency, they would have an important role to play.
But because of the automation it is only one small step to drive the trains remotely. Even if this doesn’t happen, as costs in public services come under pressure, automation will mean that drivers can work safer and in a less stressful environment.
So as they are well-paid would many feel they don’t need the Union!
In other words, this strike may be more about Union survival, than any individual grievance.
It was the same in the printing industry, where in the 1960s and 1970s, the unions put vast numbers of companies out of business because of their attitude and refusal to accept new technology. My father was a printer at the time and his business was ruined because new technology made his business easy to bring in house. The unions only had one place of power and that was newspapers. So we had days without papers and all sorts of Spanish practices. The Times even shut for a year to reform its working practices.
Hopefully we won’t see anything as drastic as that, but Transport for London must stand up to the bullying tactics of the RMT. They in turn, should behave like a responsible union.
Both parties should also wait for the Employment Tribunal.
It is the least Londoners could ask for.
ASLEF Put Their Marker Down for the Olympics
The various rail runions have never got on well and have always tried to see that they could get more out of owners, managers and ultimately taxpayers for as long as I can remember.
Today’s action by ASLEF was supposedly about triple pay and a day-off for working Boxing Day, in variance with an agreement they are reported to have signed, but was it also to show their power with the Olympics coming in 2012? They didn’t get the Danegeld this time and as millions of Londoners and tourists were seriously inconvenienced, I doubt they’ll get it if they try to do something similar about extra benefits for themselves during the games.
I was seriously inconvenienced today, as I had intended to get a Central Line train to Newbury Park for a friend to take me to the football at Ipswich. As I said earlier, the direct trains weren’t running. Instead I tried to take a 25 bus to Ilford, from where I would complete the journey on another bus.
But I was running seriously late for a pre-arranged pick-up time on a bus that would have had just a small bit of space for a couple of Snow White’s friends. All of the overcrowding could be put down to the non-running Central Line, as people had things like cases and bags of presents with them. So I abandoned the bus with some difficulty at Stratford and thought I’d get a bus home. The queues were enormous, as I suspect many had come to the interchange to get buses like the 25 to Oxford Circus. The shopping centre by the interchange was very busy too and it looked like things were getting worse rather than better.
I’d determined that I needed to get a 276 to Stoke Newington, but as that shared a stop with the 25, it would not have been a sensible proposition, so I walked back down West Ham Lane to the previous stop of the bus. Eventually, I got on a small single-decker bus after about a quarter of an hour, as that is the Sunday frequency. It then drove back through Stratford and the overcrowded stops and was probably carrying twice its legal capacity by Bow Church, where it started its meander towards Hackney.
It was then, that I got a text saying that the match at Ipswich had been called off due to a frozen pitch. So at least I was saved a long journey, even if my shorter one wasn’t much fun!
In the end I abandoned the 276 when it got to Mare Street in Hackney and went to look for another to get me back home.
I shall be interested to see how this story develops. ASLEF have seriously managed to annoy all of the shops in London, Transport for London and I suspect several million Londoners. At times, at Stratford, I felt some were going to seriously explode and that was one of the reasons, I walked away to look for a bus. I saw mothers with children getting distraught, as youths refused them access to buses with buggies, drivers and other staff were getting abuse and no-one was offering the disabled and the elderly the priority seats.
Still it was all good fun and practice for a man with dodgy eyesight and only one 100% hand. But the idea is to see if I can improve the parts of my body that don’t woek too well, by using them!
Mark Serwotka Talks Sense
He doesn’t very often, but his views in this report are absolutely correct. Lord North must be turning in his grave.
Line-Up the Dinosaurs
It would appear that the TUC’s response to the country’s enormous deficit is to do nothing!
The dinosaurs are saying we need a few strikes to stop the cuts. If there is anything, that will put as back in recession, it’s that, as people won’t be able to get to work and will have difficulty living their lives.
On the other hand, strikes would probably be counter productive, as the general public seem to be very realistic about the need for austerity. I also think that a lot of Union leaders and members know this, so they would actually suggest cuts that are sensible and worthwhile, as it’s better to have a job rather than no job.
A Reason to Turn Off
As I came out of Cambridge this afternoon, Radio 5 was interviewing Mark Serwotka. Now if there is ever a man that makes me reach for the off switch or change to another channel, it is him.
I’ve nothing particular against the Welsh, but his voice and the same moans about everything he is always droning on about, make me wonder if they were glad when he left. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say anything positive about anything!
So I switched him off.
The Anonymous Widower 