Train and tube strikes

[uneffingbelievable]

I can not work from home and my job is fairly essential.

To get to work next week - I have now along with many of my colleagues had to:

1. Book a hotel on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights
2. Pay for parking at the station for 4 full days
3. Organise extra child care and a taxi to pick DCS up from school ( too far to walk and no bus)
4. Will have to pay to eat out for those days

If the rail unions had not noticed we are ALL facing a cost of living crisis - wasting the best part of £500 to get to work is not endearing me to your cause.

The alternative of drive in and out each day in the traffic and pay for parking in London and then walk miles comes in at around £350 and exceedingly high BP.

Your actions are selfish beyond belief and hurt the innocent hardworking majority.

That is the polite version - selfish beyond belief

Haha calling these people selfish when you have zero understanding of what they are actually striking for. I bet you expect a safe and timely journey when you board your train every day

I am well aware of the strike issues - no one is being fired not abck filling posts is not compulsory redundancies, pension reforms are present for everyone and working hard is a reality.
Safety - i get but when staff are neither present or visible in the parts of the stations that they are actually needed to mitigate risk - then practices need to change

Danceswithfelines- you need to learn some EQ before you patronisingly make comments like that. I work in London - 7/7 I was on the District line approaching Edgware Road, London Bridge - had nothing to do with transport workers and I was in Borough Market at farewell drinks for a colleague - please don't conflate the issues.

Baa - how essential is my job. Clinical NHS - so yes - fairly essential.

The cost to individual people is immense - not to the rail workers, who will not be out of pocket to the same extent. Someone tell me what the strikers lose out on for the three days next week - they made a choice and accept the consequences associated with it - I do not get a choice and will be deeply out of pocket.

Are you aware there are people who work on the railway who are not taking part in the strike but also losing out because they are too affected and cannot go to work? The Caledonian sleeper has cancelled Monday to Friday because they cannot run a train down on Monday and not get their staff back on Tuesday and so on. None of their staff are participating in the strike. All of them are affected. LNER won't be running trains north or Edinburgh. None of the staff can work.

According to the ONS one of them is killed on the job every 2 or 3 months

newpapaguinea- congestion charge, ulez, petrol parking - prices have been ramped and booked out for parking and add in a parking ticket

Lets not forget the million and 1 cycle cams which will be fillming every car crawling along and then claiming an unsafe pass

Tbh - driving will have my blood pressure so high that I will not be in a fit state to work when I arrive.

Where in London do you work? You can drive into Paddington (no congestion charge), park at the station for £15 a day. Can’t help with ulez if you have a gas guzzler.

Whilst there are plenty of arguments for and against a rail strike, why did they pick a week when pupils are taking GCSEs? If kids cannot get to school and miss exams, it will adversely affect their results and further education opportunities.

Exactly this! It’s bloody ridiculous that there will be more people affected than those that work on the railways.

Workers who are critical key workers and/or those who cannot wfh (and likely on a lower wage than those striking) will be the ones that suffer along with kids doing exams.

I wonder if any of those striking would still be supportive if they were affected. I worked with a very active union member in a job years ago who did nothing to support people but was just a massive shit stirrer. Always wanted people to strike but was furious when her holiday of a lifetime was cancelled because BA were striking. There was some hidden sniggering by most of us when she was wailing about how unfair it was

I wonder if any of those striking would still be supportive if they were affected.

Well they are not all striking and it's a bit naive to think no railway workers have family members that will be affected.

Because if they striked at a quiet time, there would be minimal disruption and less bargaining power.

The ignorance about collective action in this country is staggering. Is it not taught in schools?

Please can someone explain simply what the strikers want? I have looked and not found a non convoluted version anywhere and I do strugge to understand things

So if you do not agree with the strikes - you are stupid, uneducated, ignorant, unsympathetic s to how the railworkers will suffer on the days etc.

I fully understand what collective action is - just that the majority of the popuation do not agree with the collective action being undertaken by a minority

I believe the TFL strike is about potential job cuts to non-driving staff - guards, signallers, station staff etc.

The union's position is that the cuts will affect safety, which isn't on imo.

I agree - disrupting GCSEs and A levels is going to cause huge amounts of stress and could materially change life changes for affected pupils.

One week later would have still had the same impact on the voting public, without dragging in DC during one of the most important (and already stressy) weeks in their whole school career

It simply goes both ways. You want understanding for your situation and they want understanding for theirs. Why should one person's claim be less valid than another's?

Because one side isn’t holding the country to ransom and interfering with exams to air theirs.

Life happens with or without exams. Suppose a pupil were to get sick? Suppose there were lockdowns again during exams? Suppose there wouldn't be enough staff to let students sit for exams?

All these things can happen. Life does not give a damn about one week, or even one day, over another. There is never a good time to hold a strike, but if you don't do it employers can do whatever they want regardless of the costs to their employees.

And it's a bit of a slippery slope argument to say that missing an exam materially changes a someone's life. In a way I suppose it does as do all things. We might run across someone who gets us into a career we'd never expected to go in. OR we might not meet that person and going in a different direction. But if you really have your heart set on something and it's all all possible, then one exame won't change that outcome. You might, at the most be delayed in achieving that goal.

They are not holding the country "ransom" anymore then the employers are who caused the strike in the first place.

There are however well-established contingency arrangements for the other exam scenarios you describe.

And are DC really the intended targets here?

Surely its the adult (working, voting) population

My DH and I have to book a hotel next week because he's got an all week trial and I work in icu. Can't get there by train next week, buses are useless and the traffic from our village to where we work will take about 3 hours with no trains!

Agree, they could have done it a week later and it would have made no difference to them or their ask but avoided causing problems to a load of teenagers and teachers. It’s poor form to take action that will impact teenagers and children - the rail network needs teenagers and children to form habits of using trains so they’ll continue to do so in future. Encouraging them to switch to car travel is a terrible idea. But there is zero longer term thinking from the rail unions on this (arguably that’s not their role, but if were a member of one of those unions I’d be fucked off that the decline of my industry was being hastened).

They just don’t give a shit. Maybe some of their own children might get caught up in it and they can experience a tiny bit of the hassle themselves, or maybe that’s wishful thinking.

And are DC really the intended targets here?

Doesn't matter if they are or aren't. They will be seriously effected.

Sorry I do have sympathy for those who individually are more affected but the strikes are for totally legitimate reasons. The fact that so many people on this thread are so dependent on the trains and tubes just shows how important it is that they are well run, properly staffed and most importantly safe in the long term.

Threads like this are terrifying! We are sleep walking into fascism and there are so many who would remove workers right in an instant. Boris has already said he would change laws to remove us from the ECHR, he would remove the unions as well is he could.

Signallers haven't walked out since 1994.