What the f*** do the RMT think they are playing at.....

[fuming12]

So, the RMT are striking for a pay increase....during GCSE's. The poor kids who use the train to get to school are going to be left up the creek without a paddle, but no, a £44k average salary is not enough and they have decided to hold the country to ransom for more money.

There are 4 (possibly more) GCSE's being held next week and probably many a-levels too, schools are already warning that if pupils are late the exams will have to start regardless.

They cancelled trains that got kids to school during the pandemic, they are paid above average.

I would actually like to see the RMT fail, and be called out, on this one, AIBU? They are a disgrace.

I am a union supporter generally, but this is greedy in the extreme and smacks of extortion to line their members pockets at the expense of the general public. Higher wages = higher fares.

Must be a millionaire of a big business owner or else why would anyone say that? Workers should have rights to strike if they chose too. Its pathetic you think otherwise. Hope you are never oppressed and feel the need to strike.

The right to withhold labour is a right that should not be removed. Industrial action, especially striking, is a last resort when negotiations have broken down, it is the only way the ordinary worker can get their voices heard. The only bargaining tool the ordinary worker has is their labour.

Without unions it would be a race to the bottom. Lower and lower wages, worsening terms and conditions, termination of contract without cause, health and safety breaches.

If organisations don't want their workers striking then they need to treat them better giving fair pay and fair terms. Happy workers don't strike

I think they should be dealt with P&O style.

@Florenz trust me, that is something you don't want.

And train drivers are ASLEF. We are not on strike.

I will be at work every day next week, as per my roster.

But the media do like to print crap and people do like to read it and believe it.

I of course support the RMT in their action. The race to the bottom is strong on here though.

Of course I know they’re not paid for striking. But they’re only on strike for 3 days despite the disruption lasting all week. So they should lose a weeks pay not just 3 days.

It is not like they did not give plenty of notice for schools to make adjustments. After the push for job cuts and the lack of real pay rises (and no, not everyone is on the higher wages) I am glad they are making a stand for safer working - think the NHS should be following suit.

Look, if you could just be a good prole and take your pittance to support my PMC career lifestyle so my kids are well looked after, I'll remember to maybe say "thank you" next time I see your kind in the street.

Some of us have offices and lattes to get to and you're being terribly rude.

@Liebig of course. I should know my place. Getting ideas above my station ... (pun intended)

People forget that Emily Davidson (the suffragette we all remember now as dying under the king's horse) received hundreds of hate mail letters in the last few days of her life. Just because something's right, doesn't make it popular.

Without unions it would be a race to the bottom. Lower and lower wages, worsening terms and conditions, termination of contract without cause, health and safety breaches.

This. As it has been everywhere else.

All wages are worth a fraction in real terms of what they were 25 years ago, before house prices started to be driven up and up by buy-to-let landlords and financial deregulation. Even an average of 44k, if that’s true - and just what is the distribution of that average? - is not as good a wage as it was back then. We’d need too pop have an average wage of £100k across the country to match. We all know the government is cutting standards and rights everywhere. I would rather see the country use any disruption to have a general strike in protest at being priced out of our own country, in favour of any foreign dictators with money and computers.

Well it’s not hard to see who the Daily Mail readers are on here.

And it’s quite the race to the bottom re salaries isn’t it? Jealousy and bitterness are not attractive traits.

And even if this was about train drivers’ salary (which it isn’t,) feel free to go and train to become one if you want to earn 44k a year.

This strike has come after two years of failed negotiations. So they hardly woke up last week and said “I know, rather than talking to the bosses, let’s walk out for a few days.

Maybe if more people went on strike the government would be forced to do something about people’s pay in general.

Load of bollocks sorry.

The RMT are being grabby fuckers here and impacting people at the worst possible moment economically, and they know it.

Honestly, I genuinely hope they fail. It's not a race to the bottom, but they're taking the fucking piss when millions of us are tens of thousands worse off.

Well it’s not hard to see who the Daily Mail readers are on here.

You couldn't be more wrong in my case.

You know what they say about assumptions..

I agree with workers right to strike.

But I dont think it's right to strike to try and permanently prevent the advent of technology changing how and where staff are needed.

I haven't used a ticket office in years. Where I live everyone buys on apps or at machine. Ticket offices are barely used, which is why train operating companies are willing to shut them.

If we can't allow staffing levels to be adjusted where technology is doing the job, and dont allow changes to the jobs/salaries to reflect lower complexity of roles, train fares will just be sky high to cover loads of staff paid to do jobs that simply don't exist any more. People arent being asked to reapply for their jobs. Their jobs don't exist any more, different ones do that reflect changes in the whole world and how we all live and work.

Redundancy happens. Change happens. As long as people are given decent redundancy pay then that's life.

I just think they can't block it forever.

The RMT are being grabby fuckers here and impacting people at the worst possible moment economically, and they know it.

ignoring the “grabby fuckers” comment, a strike is timed to have an impact. Otherwise there would be no point.

this is reminding me of when mumsnet posters wanted school staff to strike in the holidays instead.

@CotDotten @YodaBabe

Yes to both of you.

Do none of you remember the stress of exams? Getting there and actually being able to answer the questions?
Add in this year, not being taught a full curriculum, exam boards mucking up their advanced information (I'm looking at you AQA Physics....).
Oh and just the final turd on the bonfire, your transport method breaking down, not for any real reason but because the RMT think this is a good week to cause "maximum disruption".

The median average salary for all workers in the UK is £25,971.
The mean average salary for all workers in the UK is £31,447.
The median average salary for full-time workers in the UK is £31,285.
The mean average salary for full-time workers in the UK is £38,131.

I have no idea why we have a national minimum wage, since by the OP's way of reckoning, nobody earns less than the average.

Scandalous that workers chose to strike when people want their services. Have they no shame?

You are speaking a lot of rubbish frankly, and most of the strikers are not the staff on higher wages eg train drivers but platform staff and others who are on a relative low salary. You and many others listen to the mainstream media and press slagging off these people and don’t have the intelligence to question it. The press is run by wealthy people who it totally benefits to get the masses slagging off people who strike for better pay and conditions, rather than support them.

You are in a race to the bottom. I am a manual worker on a low salary, and like many others have had a pay cut and have lost our final salary pensions- contracts have proved totally worthless. Wake up Op or your children are heading into a workforce where the staff have little or no rights and terms and conditions are changed to suit the employer at a whim.

A strike is not meant to be convenient.

This would be more interesting if you were to post the average of RMT workers which is a fair bit higher than this as I am sure you know....I believe it to be about £45k.

what you have said is exactly a race to the bottom

I agree with the RMT in concept as the apparently 'mind-boggling' wages aren't so much so when compared with less demanding roles such as marketing, HR, media, etc and on a par with other roles that have to keep several hundred people safe at one time - usually single-handedly.

Possibly my viewpoint is skewed because I live miles from a Railway Branch Line, never mind the Tube, so if my Beauregard needed to get to his GCSEs it most certainly wouldn't be by Tube.

I'm also a bit 'smitten' with Mick Lynch who I think articulates the RMT case rather well - if only it became the RMT and Care Worker's Union.....

Because Care Workers need an advocate like Mick Lynch and the RMT.

I'm not a Care Worker either, just think they need a great job-specific Union.