To think tube drivers are overpaid as most earn 60-70k and get free travel

[nickiredcar]

Surely they are only paid so much because they run a monopoly and people have no choice. I think it's an argument against unions. Considering lots are semi automatic it does seem too high that they are now out earning pilots.

Apparently they are striking because one of their drivers was sacked for failing drugs tests at work three times

Suicides are nothing to do with the pay received. It is purely and simply the ability to hold London to ransom. Which could still be argued to be fair. But don't try and make out that it is for reparation in case someone kills themselves in front of the train.

Tube drivers are WAY overpaid.

TfL have admitted that tube drivers aren't even necessary anymore - the whole system is automated - but they can't get rid of them thanks to the unions.

Think how much money could be poured into better transport if it weren't wasted on jobs that aren't needed.

Good for them. It's not a job I'd like to do despite the money so I won't be applying.

They have the technology to run without drivers. But they don’t have the money to upgrade the system to implement it. Even the transition to automatic is massively delayed on several lines and the new trains needed for the Bakerloo won’t even be ordered until at least 2029 so I wouldn’t hold your breath for driverless any time soon

Don't think for one minute that the money saved on drivers would be poured back into the railway, it would be creamed off as profit somewhere and someone somewhere would get a nice day pay cheque off it. It it would only be one or a handful of people benefitting.

I don’t think the pay you stated is high for the job.

Katie Hopkins? Thought you'd retired quietly into shamefaced bankruptcy. Those tube drivers are lazy buggers, real men would be manually pushing those trains up the tracks on zero hours contracts.

Honestly the OP sounds like a LU troll sent on to stir up resentment, such poor taste.

I am one of the highly qualified NHS workers, I have 4 postgraduate qualifications. I work 3 days a week due to ill health. If i make it to retirement I will get a pension of around £4500 per annum.

Do I resent the tube drivers their pay? Not at all.

I wish more people doing a variety of jobs could earn 50k odd and have a half decent standard of living.

Would I do it? Not a chance. I have worked with drivers involved in suicides. It can literally impact them for the rest of their lives. Think PTSD.

Honestly I think it’s really poor to start a bitter thread about how much tube drivers are paid.

It’s great to see so many supporting well paid work, wish there was more of it!

This country has become so divided on so many issues.

And sadly it’s often the less well off scrapping amongst themselves for the crumbs from the well off. When people are struggling it’s hard sometimes to look around and be happy for others.

This divisiveness makes workers weaker. Although unions have not always behaved well, the lack of union power/influence in this country is not a good thing for workers in general.

Why would anyone criticise the good fortune of others earning a decent salary? It is the politics of envy. Be thankful for what you do have, rather than angry about what others have.

When I think of all the people who i have met in my life earning decent salaries? Who am I to judge them unworthy of that salary?

What has annoyed me

Maybe the financial advisors, selling products people don’t need, endowments anyone?
The companies selling PPI?
The companies like RBS fixing the LIBOR rate?
People like JAcob Rees Mogg moving investment funds to Ireland to protect against impact of hard BREXIT whilst campaigning for this outcome
No abortion rights for the women of Northern Ireland
Most women who are murdered in the Uk are murdered by partners and ex partners
The Tory party for starting Brexit, the Labour Party for doing nothing about it

Oh I could go on and on about the things that annoy me!

Tube drivers wages, not so much.

They have the technology to run without drivers. But they don’t have the money to upgrade the system to implement it. Even the transition to automatic is massively delayed on several lines and the new trains needed for the Bakerloo won’t even be ordered until at least 2029 so I wouldn’t hold your breath for driverless any time soon

Jubilee, Central, Victoria and Northern Lines are already automated. The "drivers" are there to open and close the doors - they're not needed to "drive" the train.

Why would anyone criticise the good fortune of others earning a decent salary?

Maybe because those not lucky enough are paying for it through their taxes and fares??

If Tube Drivers were only paid well because of the trauma of suicides, everybody with a traumatic job would also be paid well - social workers, people who attend car crashes.

I'm sure it's more complicated than some people on this thread are assuming, but government workers with traumatic jobs are often not particularly well paid and often have jobs that involve shift work.

Tube drivers are not well paid because of the trauma of their job. I wish people would stop using that.

However I’d rather get angry over the fact that other workers in difficult and dangerous jobs are paid so little.

I have seen ambulance driver jobs in London for about £8.50 an hour. Although it won't be every day, they will see some awful things. Plus work shifts and have to be very skilled drivers.

Kazzyhoward, yes they are automated, but the driver drives manually if the automated signalling system goes down, and he drivers fix issues that can happen with the train in deep tunnels.
Docklands light railway trains are far smaller, mainly outdoors and they still have drivers on each train who often manually drive the trains.
On the underground you’ve often a mile between stations in deep tunnel, if you’ve no driver and the train breaks down, how long do you think it’s going to be till you get assistance.
Also never mind suicides, what about accidents of people, often kids falling into tracks, how many of these are averted because there’s a driver in the cab who pulls the emergency break.
Eventually yes the job will be dumbed down a bit but they will never be driverless, the system is too deep level for that

On the underground you’ve often a mile between stations in deep tunnel, if you’ve no driver and the train breaks down, how long do you think it’s going to be till you get assistance.

I don't think there's a proposal for no staff on the trains at all. If there's no "driver", then there could be another member of staff on board for security and to deal with problems. It doesn't have to be a driver. Yes, it's handy to have a qualified driver on board during the introductory years to deal with teething troubles and yes, maybe drive it manually if necessary, but like with all new technology, after a while, the "problems" get fewer and fewer.

Nickiredcar what exactly is your issue, you’ve got many members of staff on here giving you factual information, one even showing you the salary on a payslip yet you continue to contradict and insist you’re right.
You’re free to disagree with the 53k salary but to keep on quoting from the DM and mirror, and minimising suicide doesn’t make you look clever at all

What is the deal with that? It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever read.

I didn't quote the daily mail, I quoted the Sunday times. If you think the stats in the mirror are wrong your welcome to counter them with your own links.

I have never minimised suicide, just quoted the actual stats and the flaw in that argument.

www.aslef.org.uk/article.php?group_id=3449

There you are

tentative3: Of course there are specific areas for H&S personnel but on so many occasions when an issue arises, all the drivers start quoting the reason they can't do it, Health & Safety. To hear 30 drivers and union reps at Baker St, going on about it's importance to them, but with no knowledge in what they were saying. At some stage, the 150 plus underground stations and lines will flood and perhaps the drivers should look to achieving a gondola operators licence.

Lovely to be paid as much, but prices would rise as the expenses of providing the service/goods rise … So: good luck to them, but too many like that and somewhere, somehow, the rest of us pay, whatever we earn.

They have to be highly trained like train drivers do. It’s years of training with lots different elements of stuff they have to remember (particularly safety). So yes, I think you are BVU.

Yes i think they are overpaid and their striking is out of order.

They're got a strong union. It could be argued that a bus driver has much more responsibility.

It is a high salary in London . The fares are too high so salaries should be frozen.