Disgusted at the amount of people jealous of tube drivers pay

[Itsawd]

They do a job dealing with the public, unsociable hours and god knows what when they get a jumper. We should congratulate them on doing well, not look at them with green eyes.

Its a free market so if anyone wants a job as one they are welcome to apply!

Anyone can apply to be a teacher with relevant qualifications.

AyeAmarok

You posted
"no unsociable hours, no having to find childcare for the holidays."

Both are incorrect unsociable hours is not just working nights (FYI been there done that, done 7s, 2s and 3s, continentals and a few more besides.)

"There are benefits to teaching, school holidays are one. You're entitled to them. You deserve them. Most people would love them, and your salary. That doesn't mean you shouldn't get what you do. Or that anyone can be a teacher.

Just like not everyone can be a train driver. "

I agree with this though.

Dopey most of what you just posted applies to train drivers and train staff too. Reviews, exams, drug and alcohol tests, public (train drivers do interact with the public sometimes too). And a bus stops quickly, I've been on quite a few. A Train does not, and it can't swerve.

Boney What I said (or tried to)was that people, who are not teachers, would say that the hours suit and holidays off and it would be much better than working "normal" jobs that aren't school hours, so they'd think "that will solve all my problems, I'll be a teacher, I'd even do it for 15k because I won't need childcare".

And that doesn't mean they would be able to, or that they were right, or that teachers shouldn't be paid what they are.

Just like everyone here saying "I could be a train driver, there's nothing to it" doesn't know what they are talking about, because they haven't done the job to know the reality.

Aye - "There are lots of jobs that are well paid and have short training periods and don't require academic qualifications.......Police"

From the Thames Valley Police website:

Police Inspectors earn between £45,624 and £51,771

Chief Inspectors earn between £49,221 and £53,919.

Neither rank can earn any overtime and can be expected to work unbelievably long hours.

You can't possibly imagine officers reach those ranks and achieve that salary with just a "short training period"?

that is not a valid comparison.

I'd love to see free market economics applied, ie open applications (no closed shop), and see what would happen.

It's currently like a mini communist regime inside the public transport world!

There are open applications in other parts of the country Baby and the salaries aren't too bad there either.

Re the police, no I know they work their way up to the higher wages, like teachers do -they don't go straight in to the 45k+ jobs either, but they don't need the qualifications that teachers need to do so. It was a qualifications point.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to answer so many posts at once that I'm not finishing them properly.

I support strong unions. But tube drivers are very well paid. The reason you are paid the salary you are, is because of strong unions. Nothing to do with the job.

From the same TVP (Federation) website:

A Constable earns between £19,383 and £37,254 (after at least ten years)

A recruit has to complete a Certificate of Knowledge in Policing prior to the recruitment process, which I am led to believe costs the applicant £1000. Once employed it takes two more years of training to become a substantive officer.

But the RMT union supports a lot more than train drivers, it's all the other roles too on the transport network, and they aren't paid 50k, so that's not really true. The job is relevant.

Here's a list of the average salaries of 351 different professions, so we can stop pretending that most ordinary jobs like teachers, police officers, vets etc earn as much as tube drivers:

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2868911/Best-paid-UK-jobs-2014-Compare-pay-national-average.html

Nut I don't think you're right about that certificate, none of the police I know have paid to do that before joining, if they even did it at all.

Anyway, most jobs require you to doing pass exams at some point, train drivers need to too!

The National Careers Service says the certificate is a pre-entry requirement for police recruits.

"There are lots of jobs that are well paid and have short training periods ...."
Aye - it was this statement I was really responding to. At entry level the police are not well paid in comparison to tube drivers. And to achieve the same kind of pay as tube drivers a police officer would have to undertake a huge amount of studying and training.

Well not here it isn't.

Which is good as it sounds like a scam, telling people to pay for and complete a course before applying means that the only people who will be able to apply to join the police are richer people with time on their hands and no family to support.

The police are meant to be a meritocracy, socially diverse and representative of the population.

Anyway, my point was academic qualifications (ie a degree) are not needed. Which is good, because degrees often don't show academic ability anyway. And certainly don't mean you'll be a good police officer/train driver/teacher/lawyer/entrepreneur or a good anything, really. They aren't the be all and end all anymore, since 50% go to uni.

It's good that there are good, well paid jobs available to bright and clever people who don't have a degree. That is a positive thing, not a negative.

For the record, I know a few police officers, some have degrees, some don't, the ones that have done well and are progressing are the ones who seem to be good at their job, degree seems to be irrelevant.

You might not need to study to be an entrepreneur, but it is pretty impossible to be a good lawyer or teacher without years of training and study - you just wouldn't have the knowledge to do your job.

Whatever the ins and outs of the police training programme, you certainly can't earn £50k within 6 months of starting, but on the other hand anyone with the right attributes can apply to be a trainee.

Nobody has yet been able to argue why London Underground shouldn't be able to advertise externally. The RMT's arguments are pretty rubbish.

*Here's a list of the average salaries of 351 different professions, so we can stop pretending that most ordinary jobs like teachers, police officers, vets etc earn as much as tube drivers:

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2868911/Best-paid-UK-jobs-2014-Compare-pay-national-average.html*

The categories on these lists are quite peculiar, though.

For example, in my own profession, which I believe would be "Higher education teaching professionals" they are presumably grouping together professors at research intensive universities (mean salary 70+k, starting age typically 40+, teaching < 40% of their contract) with people on temporary contracts, zero hours contracts etc (30k per year, 0k+ respectively) .

The 152,000 number may also include non-academic staff who are administrators for education at universities. Such staff usually do not have degrees higher than undergraduate, nor do they need to have years of research experience etc, so their mean salaries are correspondingly much lower than academic salaries (typically 20-30k).

From Police Scotland's website FAQ section:

What qualifications to I need to be a Police Officer?
There are no entrance qualifications required, you just need to pass the Standard Entrance Test.

Which is how it should be.

Merry Yes, but you could spend years training to be a lawyer or teacher and still be shit at your job. You could have the best Oxbridge degree there is, and be a terrible teacher. You could scrape a questionable degree at a dodgy uni, do your PGCE and be a fantastic teacher who gives pupils chances they'd never have had otherwise. You could be an amazing lawyer who has practiced 10 years and fail the train driver tests. You could pass but decide the working conditions (dark, hot, lonely, long hours, shifts and working 10 days straight) aren't worth the money.

Not all people are suitable for all jobs.

Aye

Your point that many of the same issues apply to both Bus and Tube drivers is EXACTLY what I've been saying

and drawing the contrast between a salary of £23K (bus) and £49K (tube)

FYI:
A double decker is around 11 tonnes. Fully loaded (with 80+ passengers) adds around 6 tonnes, so around 17/18 tonnes. Stopping distance, at 20/25mph,(ave speed in city) is around 3 full bus lengths. Not 'quickly' really, when you have people stepping out all the time, not just 'jumpers' in stations.

A colleague of H tried to 'swerve' around an accident today. He hit a bus stop and is now on a disciplinary for causing damage (and of course, having mounted the pavement, albeit slightly, it could have been so much worse).

Nice list with train drivers 2 places above solicitors.

Just to answer you Aye - I assume by 'not here' you meant in London. I have just copied & pasted this from the Met Police recruitment page

"Remember, you'll need to have successfully completed the Certificate in Knowledge of Policing (CKP) before starting your training course."

Interestingly you can also only apply to the Met if you speak one of the following:

Yoruba (Nigeria) • Hebrew • Arabic • Hindi • Punjabi • Italian • German • Turkish • Greek • Spanish • Polish • Portuguese • Sinhali (Sri Lanka) • Bengali

Whether you are a good or bad teacher you still have to study and train and having trained or studied you can apply for any job.

Not all people are suitable for all jobs, but certainly suitable candidates for tube driver jobs are not restricted to those currently working in customer services on the London Underground.

You could be an amazing lawyer who has practiced 10 years and fail the train driver tests.

Except you wouldn't be able to apply for the job.

Dopey, tell your H to apply to be a train driver then, in Edinburgh. 40k. Anyone can apply. Why doesn't he?

"facepalm" me all you like, you're not changing my opinion at all.

You were posting all the things bus drivers do that makes their job so much more difficult. I said that many of them applied to train drivers too, not to mention other jobs. Except everyone with a licence knows the rules of the road, but signals and rules on a train network are an alien environment.

I think it would be really easy to be a cleaner or a cook on an oil rig. Is that worth 800 quid a week?

Merry I said train, not Tube.

And you could apply for Tube, you'd just need to apply for a lower job first and back yourself to be able to be a driver. Just like one of the MNetters on this thread did, MoleandCrew

Total closed shop, jobs for the boys, and they're all thick with no qualifications. Except here's a woman, with a degree, who got one.

Maybe they want to see you're committed and not just in it for the money? Perfectly fine to do that, IMO. Lots of people want to be a driver, going straight in at the top, so they make you work for it, and?

Nut I said Scotland