To say suck it up like the rest of us???

[ticktickticktickBOOM]

I come from a socialist family, we had striking miner's kids living with us for respite during the strikes. However, the railway unions are taking the pee aren't they? Transport workers aren't the only people taking a hit right now. What about the 100's of thousands of hospitality, leisure, carer and charity workers in bars, cafe's, restaurants, theme parks, swimming pools, hotels, campsites, working in supporting all our children and elderly relatives etc that are getting between tiny and zero wage increases yet have no option but to carry on and make ends meet. Why can't railway workers see the problems they are going to cause and why can't they see that they are IN THE SAME BOAT AS EVERYONE ELSE (except the wealthy obvs).

YABU - striking railway workers are more deserving of pay increases than the rest of us

YANBU - we need to pull together and see every member of society through this and not cause each other harm

In no particular order - Teachers, Police, NHS staff, Firefighters - give them all 10% backdated to last April. They might then catch up with the private sector (although I doubt it).

Have you priced these proposals? What would the cost be? It will be in the hundreds of billions, and trillions if you factor in future years. How do you propose that the cost should be met? How much extra income tax and VAT are you personally prepared to pay? How many years are you willing to delay your state pension by?

Hint: this isn’t the answer:

Increase tax on private landlords to 50%. hopefully that will release a lot of housing to FTBs.

(The majority of private landlords are already paying 40% income tax on rental income.)

Perhaps you think that we should print more money. That worked out well last time, didn’t it?

Easy to make grand declarations about why everyone should get a big pay rise because you think that they deserve it. Not so easy to deal with the practicalities.

What is the answer @Iamthewombat ?

What's your answer @Iamthewombat ?

Workers just roll over and accept whatever shitty terms their betters deign to give them?

Meanwhile billions are uncollected from tax avoiding non-doms, oligarchs, google, Amazon and multi-millionaire cabinet ministers get away with using tax havens, whilst telling the rest of us to tighten our belts?

And you wonder why the RMT aren't taking it lying down. Good for them!

YABU I know someone who is a trackside worker, he works nights, weekends, bank Holidays, Christmas, in all weather's in dangerous conditions with very technical machinery, he hasn't had a decent payrise for years. His money may look good but when you factor in the times & days he works & the shifts the money is rubbish. Don't forget if they make a mistake it could cost lives. If they remove ticket offices at stations how will anyone without a smartphone or a credit or debit card buy a ticket or someone who wants to know the best way to get somewhere or someone is lost? Station staff are needed, who is going to assist a disabled person who needs to get on a train, someone who is in a wheelchair who needs a ramp to get on a train? Who will assist someone who has a fall in the station or collapses? I fully support the RMT strike & I'm proud to say ds is going on the picket line today representing the Green Party.

Einsteinagogo Fare free protest is illegal.

It’s not a race to the bottom - however I don’t believe that strike action is the way forward either. People need a living wage and consecutive governments both Tory and labour have failed to provide this. For example the baggage handlers at Heathrow are paid 12.50 an hour - about 1770£ a month take home. My childcare is 1200£, mortgage 1500£. The maths doesn’t work. Whilst the airport owning company is a foreign multinational making huge profits. People working full time should not need to claim benefits to make ends meet. Women should not be forced out of work because of childcare costs. Food banks are Dickensian. 2/3 of government revenue is from income tax, however the basic needs of working people are completely ignored by both the government and opposition. Train drivers are in a position to strike - most workers aren’t. Only 17% -ish of workers are public sector- whom Labour seemed to be obsessed with. The Tories are only interested in top 10%. We need a political party who will address the needs of the majority. Striking is not going to achieve that.

I do wonder why billionaires are greedy, fair enough they’ve made a fortune but to keep others in poverty or push workers into poverty is not acceptable

It might help if you articulated the question. But if the question is, “what do we do about rising inflation?” the answer isn’t, “keep going on strike to increase wages”. The 1970s isn’t that long ago. See what happened then.

Do you realise that striking will have zero effect on tax avoidance? You, predictably, use Amazon as an example. Amazon pay tax in the U.K. Everyone with a half-baked argument about tax uses the same example.

Amazon are a US-headquartered business. Do you think that they should pay all of their global tax in the U.K.? How do you propose to make that happen? Individual governments can’t force outcomes like that. We have global tax legislation like BEPS to control profit shifting to low tax environments. The RMT going on strike isn’t going to cause the U.K. to e.g. invade Luxembourg to stop them offering favourable tax treatment to businesses.

Well yes, of course he works unsocial hours, because that is when track is maintained. Going on strike isn’t going to change that. As a trackside worker he is most likely employed by a third party anyway, not Network Rail.

Re staff at stations: if you think that the RMT care about somebody falling over at a station whilst it is unmanned, you are being naive. They care about their own members’ interests. Loads of stations are already unmanned. Ramps (near me, at least) are usually kept on the trains and operated by the train conductor, not by station staff.

Exactly.

and the less the average person fights back the bigger that gap will become. We shouldn’t be sitting back and happily watching the rich getting richer while more people are pushed into poverty

It's a complex issue, and no it should not be a race to the bottom. As a family we have been badly affected by train strikes so from a personal perspective it is hard to continue to have sympathy with striking train workers, when the inconvenience caused to so many is so huge.

YABU, if you're 'sucking it up', you're obviously in a great position to do so, or just falling for the rhetoric and lies to try and deflect the blame from the 1% who have spent the last decade+ amassing huge amounts of wealth and are attempting to distract us from this by encouraging in-fighting rather than everyone standing together.

Anyone on strike today is losing a days pay, and will do so for every day they go on strike, but they're making that sacrifice in the hope that long term they'll be paid a living wage and corners won't keep being cut on safety.

If you really fancy some reading, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) health and safety report from 20/21 highlights the network rail failings and how bad maintenance is getting, yet they want to cut it even more?!
www.orr.gov.uk/monitoring-regulation/rail/promoting-health-safety/annual-health-safety-report

Time to support those on strike in any way we can, join workplace unions and make the 1% live real lives, not off the flesh of their workers, who, like you point out, are the ones doing the essential jobs.

YABU, all public sector workers should be striking and we all need to support each other.

@Iamthewombat - As far as I can see you still haven't answered the question. You've only told us what 'isn't' the answer regarding rising inflation. Anyone would think you were a politician! I would be interested to know what alternatives you think railworkers, teachers, nurses etc. have when they're being offered below inflation payrises and can no longer afford to live? Would you rather they went and begged on their hands and knees for a payrise instead? Maybe you would rather they left their jobs and looked for something better paid? Not sure how that is going to improve the current recruitment crisis in teaching and the NHS though. Safety is most certainly an issue and you're the naive one if you really believe it isn't. Empty stations are in nobody interests, particularly vulnerable passengers travelling alone at night. We should all be questioning why the railway companies are making huge profits each year instead of paying their staff a living wage. It makes me angry when workers turn on each other rather than directing their wrath at the people who have the power to change things if only they weren't consumed with greed.

How long till driverless trains

So basically you’re a socialist until it inconveniences YOU?

You left TWELVE minutes between your two posts….give people a chance to reply for goodness sake.

And yes I would still support your right to strike.

What else are they supposed to do? They cant award themselves a decent pay rise like the politicians do. Lots of people working in the rail industry dont get paid much, despite what the daily mail might say. Billions in dividends have been paid to share holders across all the privatised unitilies/ sectors over the decades, the money is, or at least, was there.

My daughter is not a member of a union, she says she cant afford the extra costs. Hence, in her full time job as a TA, she is expected to teach and has been teaching a class of up to 34 primary school children, over the last 18 months, whilst the teachers are off on maternity leave and covid/ long covid. Her income covers her rent on an ex council flat (shit hole) and her council tax, that' is all. Perhaps if she was in a union things might be different.

Trains should be renationalised. Cut out the shareholders and there’s more in the pot to pay workers and keep the prices of tickets down for the public using the services.

Happy to. Anyone with an interest in economics can tell you what to do in response to high inflation.

Let’s cut the dramatics, shall we? All this ‘begging on their hands and knees for a pay rise’ and ‘consumed with greed’ stuff. It cheapens your argument.

Firstly, I’d cut the money supply. But I’d do it by introducing strict controls over lending for residential property, not for business loans. That would direct lending towards businesses that want to invest. Right now, banks are incentivised to lend to homebuyers rather than to limited companies because they have collateral for the former but not the latter.

That would encourage businesses to grow and develop new products and markets in the U.K.. I’d introduce some corporation tax incentives to help that process along. GDP should increase as a result. Hence, more money to go around.

Reducing mortgage lending will bring house prices down, which will help younger people. High prices have been fuelled by cheap credit and excessive lending. As will increasing Bank of England base rate: I’d put it up to 4% then see what happens to inflation. Many homeowners won’t want to hear that, though: I can imagine the howls of ‘but what about my inheritance?’ and ‘negative equity!’. But that’s the medicine, I’m afraid. You can’t have it all ways.

You can’t treat inflation caused by price shocks by giving everyone pay rises. It doesn’t work. You end up chasing your tail. As the 1970s showed very clearly.

@Iamthewombat - You still haven't answered my question though! What do you expect railworkers, teachers and nurses to do, right now, to try and improve their situation? Unfortunately none of your pie in the sky ideas are actually being put into practice, which leaves them with nowhere else to go as far as I can see. Although in the longer term I do agree with some of your points, in particular the issues with cheap credit and excessive lending, your arguments seem somewhat lacking and unempathetic when it comes to addressing the immediate crisis people are facing.

Yet, the strike is not just about pay. It is about job cuts which may lead to a dangerous working environment, it is about conditions of work as well. It is about job loss, the erosion of employees' rights and the weakening of public transport. It is about proposals and cuts that are discouraging people from using public transport after the pandemic, rather than improving services and encouraging more people to use the systems

The RMT are not the only group taking industrial action, or thinking about taking industrial action, and in all cases, the reasons for the strikes are much more profound than pay alone.

On the contrary, we should all take their lead and revolt.

The public want a railway that is reliable, safe (for staff and passengers alike) and reasonably priced.

And that's what the strike is about, no matter how the press spins it. The RMT is working harder to give the public what it wants and needs than the government is.

@Mrsparsnip - Fantastic comment - I totally agree. What worries me is that I saw an interview with Grant Shapps this morning saying that they're introducing new laws to stop workers from striking. This complete erosion of civil liberties and workers' rights is shocking and something everyone should be taking issue with in my opinion. People fought long and hard to win these rights for us and anyone who is happy about this government power grab is being very short-sighted indeed.