Tube drivers and their pay

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It makes me angry.... Surely tube drivers are paid far, far more than jobs with equivalent levels of responsibility, and they only get away with it because they can hold London to ransom... Do they have no shame!?

Oh, and part of the training and ongoing assessment is dealing with emergency situations: train derailment, fires, fatalities, terrorism etc. So spare me the 'push a lever' and 'know red from green' nonsense.

well they can't advertise all jobs internally - they would run out of staff!

in fact their jobs page has jobs people can apply for (not driving jobs - probably because they've just made lots of drivers redundant)

The average chimp could drive a tube train with a few hours instruction

This is the sort of respect people have for the working classes.
Yeah, you have several thousand people going about their daily lives but they only need a base primate to drive the train.

Show some respect to chimps! They are not base primates at all. They are one of the 5 great apes, the other 4 being gorillas, orang utangs, benobos and us!

Chimps are our closest relatives.

Base primate indeed!!!

Possibly because people off the street think chimps could do the job?

My toc do recruit trainee drivers off the street but also sometimes recruit internally only. I don't know why but I'd hazard a guess that recruiting internally reduces drop outs from those who don't like the reality of the work, particularly the hours. It costs a lot to train a driver, reducing failure rates is a priority.

Ye Gads there are some truly ignorant posts on here.

A chimp? How fucking insulting. It takes months to train.

I agree with everything that has been said in support of LUL's workers.

Some of you make it sound like it's a walk in the park. Well until you've worked there and experienced just a handful of the conditions/situations day in, day out then you have absolutely no bloody right to pass judgement on them.

Not only are they exposed to significantly higher risk of terrorism, it is HOT, it is sweaty, when you blow your nose soot comes out, you are responsible for thousands of people's safety multiple times a day, you will more than likely during your driving career have at least one person launch themselves under your train, completely unsociable hours, being verbally assaulted becomes part of everyday life, being physically assaulted is high risk every day, you must be able to respond quickly to emergencies which given the nature of the environment, happens regularly on varying degrees including bomb threats, station fires, passengers requiring first aid, the list goes on.

I said it a couple of days ago on the 7/7 thread, LUL staff are the first on the scene in any emergency that happens on the train, on the platform or on the station. They constantly are on guard, train very hard and seldom get the recognition they deserve. And because they have a strong union willing to stick up for their worker's right's they get it in the neck. It's not them that's the "problem" it's that other unions are too bloody lily livered.

railwayworker - internal TOC applicants are already on the payroll & already know elements of the job (if safety crit) so it's easier and cheaper.

I've had a 1% pay rise in 5 years (public sector) and I don't earn anywhere near as much as the train drivers.

However, I fully support the staff who have gone on strike. Their pay is irrelevant. Every worker had the right to reasonable conditions. Enforcing night shifts with no consultation, is simply not right and I do not think anyone, in any job, would take it either.

They are not asking for more money, they are asking for better consideration of their work/life balance and I sincerely hope they achieve it.

Wife of a tube driver here who had to walk 1.5hrs to work this morning and evening. I can categorically state that my husband applied for his job which was very openly advertised and available to all. Call him an overpaid chimp all you like but that overpaid chimp is the only person that knows what to do in the event that there is a serious incident deep underground and he has personal responsibility for the safety and security of everyone of those people. Are some of you aware of the degree of personal risk that comes with the remuneration? He can be done for manslaughter if he makes a mistake that costs lives. With that in mind, would you accept a change to your working pattern that you didn't sign up for that could make this risk greater? But you know, they don't know they're born innit?!

www.tfl.gov.uk/careers knock yourself out. It's such cushy life being a train driver, I considered it once but after looking into it a bit more, decided to stick with my significantlybetter working conditions in a nice office where I wasn't being called all sort of nasty names for admittedly pushing lots of paper around for around the same money. But I have PG degree so that's ok right?!

I don't know how long it takes to train to be a pilot but I'm hoping it's longer than that.

It took me 60 weeks from walking in the door of the flying school to carrying my first passenger in a jet airliner. 60 fucking hard weeks with only one break of 4 days scheduled off in all that time. Weekends were not formally rostered, but if the weather or trainer aircraft serviceability meant you fell behind during the week, you could catch up at weekends. It was possible to be rostered to fly any time of day between 6am and 6pm, or up to 10pm if night flying. We did exam after exam after exam. The subject matter was not a deep as my degree was, but the relentlessness of the information thrown at you meant that my 60 weeks at flying school was much more intensive than my entire 3 year degree (unrelated science subject at a RG uni.) There was no option to resit anything.

So it's really nice after all that training that I can just sit back and push the autopilot button! Tis easy, really. As is driving a train. Probably. Until it all goes to a can of worms in a dark place and you're in charge.....

Tube drivers striking causes massive disruption to London. That implies that the work they do is practically indispensable. Why shouldn't we pay people according to how useful their job is to society?

No, we should pay them on the basis of supply and demand and their skills, which is how people usually get paid in a capitalist society.

A tube driver does more essential work than Wayne Rooney. But millions of people could become successful tube drivers ( and many would love to based on their current deal). But very few people could play upfront for Man U and England.

That's why road sweepers get paid less than hedge fund managers. Even though we'd miss road sweepers more.

TTWK are your first or second year A level Sociology?

i support the strikers - good for them for not rolling over

surely we should all aspire to this level of professional solidarity and a good living wage, rather than seeking to cut their pay out of envy?

i only wish my union were as strong and effective, perhaps then my public sector wage wouldn't have been eroded by pay freezes

HermioneWeasley - well why don't you apply then if you think its so easy then.

So flipping ignorant cannot believe you think the job is easy.

Talking to a friend who works for Network Rail and I asked about the leaves on the track and whilst I think its silly she explained that leaves on the track get packed down onto the rails as the trains drive over them which then blocks the rails from getting signals from the trains about where they are, if something has fallen on the track etc. and poses safety issues.

We might all moan and groan about delays when leaves are on the tracks but when you hear the other side of the story you think well actually I understand why its such an issue and good for them for putting safety above all because guaranteed the one time there is an accident the first thing will say is why wasn't safety put first blah blah blah. The transport companies just can't win.

Same goes for those who complain when planes are grounded due to snow and they are missing their holidays well boo hoo I'd rater be alive thanks.

The full pay for a Tube Driver is what they stay on ..there are no progression points just the pay rises and few promotion opportunities to for example Driver Manager my understanding is that there is greater capacity to earn differing amounts as a Pilot. In any case no one mentioned the Bankers yet

Quiz, training is just as long at my toc whether you're internal or not and you remain on your full salary rather than being on a trainee rate. Is that not the case at all tocs?

Yes leaves on rail is the equivalent to driving a train on ice apparently according to DH ..mindboggling stuff.

I thought members (from 4 unions) voted to strike - these are not just drivers it includes any TfL workers including managers, ticket office staff, station assistants, engineers etc etc. Why is the title mentioning only tube drivers?

If they had been offered a 5% increase and a bigger bonus, the strike wd have been called off. On average they will be working an extra 5 nights a year, but, in the future drivers will be hired just to do the night shift so all current drivers won't have to do nights if they don't to.

The 900 job loses have nothing to do with this, more that that applied for the very generous VS that is being offered. So many are leaving of their own choice that they are hiring lots of CSAs to fill the gaps.

It's a rubbish job that most people wouldn't want to do, but they get paid extremely well for it and at the end of the day they want as much money for it as the unions can get them, good for them.

To be honest, from the descriptions of the job, you would think it was novel that a job actually involved some training (really very short compared to a nurse or doctor or ambulance driver), responsibility (ditto) or retained knowledge. This is standard in most jobs I think? I'm not really buying into this so special argument. They are overpaid for what they do, but have carved out a nice niche for themselves. Many people find their entire lives disrupted by job relocations, never mind shift changes, or redundancy. And many of them never get the chance to be paid nearly 50k a year.

It reminds me of that Ineos strike in Grangemouth. The same arguments were churned out. These men were keeping the country running, their job was vital, so damaging the entire economy and inventing people's names on the union membership role was justified. And then you find out they were paid an average of 50k per year too, and many of them not even degree qualified for what should have been technically complex jobs.

derenstar.
A really good defence of tube drivers and their roles and responsibilities... Making me re-evaluate somewhat and see it's not as clear cut as I had first supposed. Thank you.

sunshine. I was responding to the comment that tube drivers should be paid the same as pilots because the jobs are comparable, and they are not - the level of training and qualification vary hugely.

There are few jobs where you can earn that amount for that level of qualification and training. Nurses, paramedics and junior doctors earn less and have to put up with just as much shift work and arguably more unpleasant aspects.

You can debate whether it's right what nurses are paid, and have a whole range of opinions on whether or not it's great that the tube drivers' union has got them their package, but my posts are based in facts:

1. it requires more training and qualifications to be a pilot than a tube driver
2. there are plenty of jobs doing just as difficult and skilled (or more difficult and skilled) work which are paid a lot less, and compared to those, being a tube driver is well remunerated.

Why is there a common theme from people that only people with degrees and other big qualifications deserve to be earning high wages above £40k and well any job that doesn't require it should be paid a pittance.

Let me tell you that in my private sector job I needed 5 days training to be doing what I do and my degree could of been about growing bananas because that's irrelevant my degree is to my job. I get paid more than a tube driver for what is just a 5 day training course and I don't even have any accountability such as people's lives in my hands to worry about. But according to some because I have a degree I am therefore deserving of my salary.

Fwiw the usual route to driver on the underground is via csa. Customer service assistant. So you generally have to work in the stations first. They have in past advertised for direct recruit operators but from what I've been told the drop out/ failure rate is much higher that for those who have come from the stations.
I'd love to stay and debate this all night but I have to be at work in 6 hours so must try to get some sleep. Although I could just bring a chimp with me to work so I can doze off I suppose

there are plenty of jobs doing just as difficult and skilled (or more difficult and skilled) work which are paid a lot less, and compared to those, being a tube driver is well remunerated.

Because the tube drivers have organised, have stuck together and have elected strong leadership. There's a lesson there for us all.