AIBU a strike without popular support is doomed to fail?

[Mistoffeleze]

Along with tube drivers and other workers (teachers) who have stricken (?) in recent years, without the general population behind you, you are doomed to fail and this most recent strike by RMT is a cynical bid to get money for your staff at the expense of anything else in nothing more than a last-ditch attempt to justify the existence of unions.

Good news for Uber, at least. Anyone have shares?

Employers have a legal duty to display the Health And Safety Law Poster, or to provide each of their workers with the equivalent leaflet (available as a free download). The poster/leaflet explains grievance procedure, and gives contact details for the Health and Safety Executive.

Contact details for the Employment Tribunal should also be provided to employees. By law employers must set out a grievance procedure and share it in writing with all employees.

Massive advances in workers' rights and safer standards for all have earned the Unions their place in history. Thanks to the Unions, every employee in the UK is protected by a comprehensive system of law. Thanks to the Unions, the UK's health and safety standards are the envy of the world. Thanks to the Unions, bodies that ensure adherence to the law exist, including the Health and Safety Executive and the Employment Tribunal.

The Unions' own legacy has rendered them redundant.

£50,000,000 this strike has cost the tax payer. It's caused misery for hundreds of thousands of people. I am not a fan!

It's the RMT as well as ASLEF.

Sorry Euro, yes it was both. ASLEF drivers were involved yesterday for the first time which brought things to a standstill. Previously it's been RMT conductors only.

love I'm happy to discuss this with you if you are going to stop being chippy and quoting parts of sentences back at me.

Whilst I fully agree with striking (and am a member of quite a militant union) I really can't get my head around this one. I didn't even know there WERE parts of the UK that had staff other than a driver on the train. Train doors closed by the driver round here with no issues. Same with the tube. Why does this area feel the need to be different?

Now, they have imposed a rule for Conductor’s that we are unable to self-certify any sickness and a doctor will only certify for over 7 days. So, if we are sick and want to receive our company sick pay, we have to be off work for at least 7 days, even if we are not ill for that long. This rule is still being imposed upon us

And so, as a completely separate issue, Southern is also requiring its staff to waste limited GP appointments. Slow hand clap...

I didn't even know there WERE parts of the UK that had staff other than a driver on the train. Train doors closed by the driver round here with no issues. Same with the tube. Why does this area feel the need to be different

If you go back a couple of pages there is a detailed comment by a guard that explains.

I live in an area where we do have guards. The tube is ok because the stations are manned. This is not the case in the depths of Sussex where many Southern Trains run to.

It seems that there are separate mini issues all going on here.

1. The conductors themselves. They have articulated real and tangible safety concerns (as per the post earlier by GiddyOnZackHunt Tue 13-Dec-16 17:41:32)
2. The actions and attitude of the Union/way they have been able to call strike on the say-so of a minority(?) of voting members. This is compounded by historical accounts of outrageous behaviour by the people who are meant to espouse being at one with their brothers and sisters. Bob Crowe and his massive salary and council house, the union car parks, accounts like this one from an ex union employee, etc etc.
3. The government's disastrous deal with Southern which has no incentive for the rail operator to do anything.

Each one of those is almost a different subject which needs a different argument and a different solution. They have just been thrown together in this terrible confluence.

1. The conductors themselves. They have articulated real and tangible safety concerns

If Southern Rail are jeopardising public safety, Southern Rail employees have a duty to report this to the Health and Safety Executive. Whistleblowers have the protection of the law.

2. The actions and attitude of the Union

The concerns of Anonymous Train Conductor and his colleagues could have been dealt with completely independently of the Unions, in accordance with Southern Rail's written grievance procedures. Instead, the Unions are holding all parties ransom: Southern Rail, their employees, and hundreds of thousands of commuters.

3. The government's disastrous deal with Southern

Come the next election, vote nationalisation!

lovelearning can I suggest you apply your self proclaimed love of learning to the realities of life?

Your simplistic view of the world only works hypothetically.

2 examples:
Whistleblowers are rarely left in the same financial position they were prior to whistleblowing.

Individuals cannot take employers/governments to task in the same way a group can; unions are that group. Unless you want an American style system where Class Actions are required... and the individual tends to see very little change or financial recompense.

Frankly the resort to safety concerns is laughable. The recent pre-strike industrial action has meant a terrible service and fewer trains, leading to dangerous overcrowding. The train I ended up getting home on Monday (after standing in Victoria station for an hour) was rammed to the point where I was feeling crushed and unwell. Where was the unions' concern for passenger safety then?

Euro chick - if the unions gave a tiny flying fuck about the public, they wouldn't scream and strike at the drop of a hat.

I guess no dinosaur enjoys becoming extinct!

eurochick, you could as validly ask where was the train operators' concern for passenger safety. If it was a real issue, they shouldn't have attempted to run any service at all. The unions didn't force them to do that.

euro the union doesn't do the roster or pay the comductor's wages.
Southern run below their required staffing level. If staff don't do overtime they cannot fill the timetabled services.
You cannot run an organisation well relying on demotivated staff to do overtime.

There is no pre-strike industrial action. Southern have alienated staff. The staff no longer wish to do overtime. This is not industrial action.

I drive 12 car trains DOO with up to 1,200 people on them. I would love to have a guard. Sadly my line gave up that right a long time ago when there were less trains and far less passengers. If I worked on a line that currently had a guard, I would fight to keep that. The monitors we have are sometimes grainy and distorted. Also when the doors have shut and we take power, the images disappear. So if someone runs to catch the train and falls between the train and platform, I won't know, I won't see that. Luckily it's a rare event. But one person hurt is one too many. Friday and Saturday nights are a prime example. Very drunk people wandering about at unmanned stations.

I saw a drunken eejit fall onto the tube tracks recently (at an outside station, luckily with a low drop to the tracks). He swayed into the train and then when it started moving, he bounced off the side, and then when it pulled out of the platform, he fell over the edge and onto the tracks.

We (as in the people on the platform) all thought he had been fried, but with the luck of a drunk, he was lifted back up and had no idea what had just happened.

However, the guards only came running when three people jumped down to get him (presumably they thought the electricity could run through all of them?). At no point did having guards on that platform stop him from lurching around or falling against the carriage or falling onto a track. So not being a GF but a genuine question - can guards actually do that much to help safety if people are determined to put themselves at risk?

one person hurt is one too many

"You enabled me to put my very serious concerns forward to my Organisation in an appropriate and articulate way. You also supported me in feeling safe and protected from any backlash.....I feel that PCAW is a vital resource that MUST be protected at all costs, as in my case it has safeguarded so many vulnerable adults and staff as well as re-established my trust in my Organisation to respond and protect me as a whistleblower."

www.pcaw.org.uk/individual-advice

Tube guards and train guards are trained differently as explained if you read the thread.

Tube trains don't have guards. So I imagine the people that came running were platform staff? Guards are trained in safety critical duties. They can isolate the third rail the same as a driver in an emergency. They can place down protection if a train is derailed and not activating track circuits to stop another train coming and causing a collision. Platform staff aren't trained the same. All I can say that when I go into work, I just want to get people from A to B safely and on time. If I saw someone in danger, I would be out of my cab to help them. Incidents that occur inside the train I have no knowledge of unless someone pulls the passenger alarm.

Temporary I assume they would have been platform staff rather than conductors if the train had gone. And if there were a few of them.

Slowtrainouttahere

If you are unsure whether blowing the whistle is doing the right thing, you may want to ask yourself these questions:

If my baby was going into hospital for an operation, would I want a nurse to tell someone if they thought the surgeon was incompetent and dangerous?
If I was that nurse, should I tell my managers that I thought this surgeon was not up to the job and might be harming patients? Wouldn't this normally be a quicker and better way to address the actual problem than going to a regulator or the media?
If I was a manager at this hospital, would I want someone to tell me about this surgeon before more patients were harmed and the hospital's reputation was damaged?

www.pcaw.org.uk/individual-advice/faqs/faq-answers#q2

Oh, do stop it!

If you want to play silly buggers by continually posting about PCAW - who do a great job but cannot protect every/anyone from all of the fall out from whistle blowing - you also have to do a quick google for the stories of people for whom whistle blowing ruined their lives - entirely due to the illegal retaliatory actions of the organisation they worked for.

Start with Dr Hamilton, Scotland, NHS.