Do you sympathise with the strikers?

[TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo]

I'm afraid it's a no from me.

We are in West Yorkshire and we are just entering week 3 of a full bus drivers strike from one of the operators.

It's costing £75 a week in taxis to get my daughter to and from school. It's 6 miles away so too far to walk and I'm disabled and can't drive.

For my eldest daughter to visit her girlfriend it should be a 15 minute bus journey. Now it's a bus to Bradford Centre, then another one to Leeds, then another to her town.

My husband works in a minimum wage job and some of his colleagues who cannot drive are having to take unpaid leave as they can't afford taxis to get them to work and back.

I'm pretty frustrated and wish they would just bloody agree on something!!

Interested to hear other peoples thoughts and opinions especially with all these other potential strikes coming up.

Yes I do.

Yes, I do. It's vitally important that the right to withdraw labour remains.

Yes, I support them. My understanding is that the government is holding up talks, refusing to engage and causing difficulties, yet keeping their involvement quiet while they blame the workers.

Another example of shit governance where they blame everyone but themselves.

The people really need to stick together on this one. I would support a general strike at the same time.

Yes absolutely.

Yes I do. DH is a university lecturer and been on strike over pension cuts this academic year, but strikes are awful things for everyone involved and I really hope it doesn’t end up as a national strike,

In this case it appears to be Unite who are holding things up. Arriva have confirmed they have offered pay rises between 7-12.5% which I think is pretty good considering what other people are getting at the moment yet the are refusing to ballot the members as Unite are saying it's not enough?

Blame the government, not the strikers.

Yes I do. Direct your anger at the bus/train companies, not the strikers. The companies could resolve this in minutes if they wanted to.

No I don’t. The rail companies are always going on strike, look at their wages! How greedy they are.

Yes, I do as a matter of principle. I completely understand people who are unhappy about this and I wouldn’t blame them for being upset but they could be in the same situation on their work place next month.

Yes I stand with them. And we are quite badly affected by the train strikes.

The right to withdraw labour is only taken as a last resort when other avenues have broken down. It is a right enshrined in law, there always needs to be a way to say "this employer won't listen" collectively.

I don't know. I've read so many conflicting things and still don't understand it properly.

Of course. Striking is a last resort. Blame the companies and government. It’s not a race to the bottom.

Yes I do. You’ve only gotta look over at Europe and the quality of their rail network to see how abysmal and overpriced ours is. Yet the rail companies want to continue to strip things even further to the bone, so they can make even more than they already do, at the expense of everyone else using the network.

Yes. It's not a race to the bottom.

Yes

Yes I do.

Yes. Many bus drivers have left to drive HGVs instead as the wages are a lot better so they need to be paid more for a skilled job with unsocial hours.

I’m in West Yorkshire too OP and don’t drive so rely on busses. Arriva run all of the bus routes in my area so for two weeks we have been stuck, unless we want to pay a fortune on taxis but we don’t have the money to do that. This is having a huge impact on us as a family.
While I understand why the strikes are happening and I do sympathise with the drivers, I am also very frustrated that we are being used as pawns in a game that we have no say in.

Yes I do. I sympathise with all working people, their standard of living is falling, why should they just suck it up. It makes no economic sense to me either, if the masses are made poorer, that's less money spent in restaurants, shops etc. I'm sure some Brexiteer Tory will come along and 'educate' me about how increased poverty is a good thing and why it seems to be completely undisguised policy now.

Yes I think you right with this one. I have probably not worded my post in the correct way.

I'm frustrated at the company and the union rather than the actual drivers.

Don't you think asking for 12% is a lot though? Especially when the NHS only got 3%!

Unfortunately, I think that's exactly what it is.

You’re looking at this backwards!

nhs should have got a lot more

No I don’t. It just makes things worse for people in general - in particular poorer people. Now some of the poorest people are unable to get to their minimum wage jobs.

My h was supposed to attend something that’s been put onto Zoom due to the strikes. Well it’s a win for him - no travelling. No travel fares gained by public transport. So making things worse overall.

Not to mention the poor sods trying to travel to take their GCSEs.

want the doctor to put down the scalpel mid operation?

easy to support strikes if it isn’t fucking you over

No, not at all