What do people think about rail strikes?

[ITUnurse]

I cannot find any threads on the rail strikes / opinion of them.

I personally do support the strikes. We in the NHS will face a similar struggle shortly. I support the rights of workers to strike. Conditions at the moment are dire.

However, if England is so right wing and strikes aren't supported and the Tories continue to be voted in. I've not seen much public support online except from a few and I'm at risk of being in an echo chamber.

Ultimately if England is so under the thumb of the tories, I'm not sure what the long term solution is. The rest of the UK doesn't return the Tories in such numbers.

If you don't support strike action, what do you think the rail workers, NHS workers etc should do? We've already got people leaving enmasse. It's difficult to comment on the conditions of a job you don't work in and nurses regularly get gaslighted on here I am genuinely concerned as to what is going to happen to the public sector of the UK with this right wing stranglehold.

Thanks

I'm done with it. I'm self employed and if I don't work I don't get paid. To get to work by train takes me 25 mins. By bus nearly 2 hours and I need to leave at the crack of dawn to get there. I work in an industry that was decimated by the pandemic and I've just got back on my feet this year. I feel depressed and miserable because I can't see a way forward.

Bollocks. I’ve never been paid more than £30k my entire working life ( 36 years). Sometimes it’s felt like an absolute fortune and sometimes not, depending on; my age, having children, tax, being part of a couple, renting privately, renting through a HA and the pressures of job itself.
It’s relative.If your job relies on a long commute that you pay for, you’re worse off. By a lot but not true of people that WFH or get expenses.

Supermarkets Pat £10 ish an hour which is £19k. So many jobs pay less including local councils, TA’s, nursery workers etc. So what happens when these essential workers want more?

Hear hear . I work in this field ( restructuring/ corporate axe welding). Its never nice to put someone out of a job but you need to prune the structure/ resource to maintain the business most effectively.

Better that than it fails and everyone out of a job.

I've recently been working with a public sector client and its hard work as the unions obviously just want thr best for their members and don't really care about the success of he business if that doesn't favour their members.

But if they say they want a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies in any negotiations I will laugh in their face.

Management need to be able to have thr right to manage, negotiations should be respectful of both views and aim to meet in the middle not unions throw multiple strikes at Xmas because they didn't get their full way.

How does that work then?

The employers and the RMT had a compromise deal, 10% over 2 years (so less than half the rate of inflation) but the Govt torpedoed that.

Health Unions calling for pay talks with Govt (will call off strikes)... Govt refusing... & have refused any talks on pay from the very beginning.

Both unions willing to meet in the middle....

Funny you call for respect but also say you would laugh in the face of no compulsory redundancies.... more management double speak...

On the inflation argument, we ve very low pay rises right now, but inflation out of control.. caused in the main, by energy prices, supply issues and companies determined to keep profits as high as pre Ukraine/Covid.

I support strikes. Workers have had their earnings decimated for decades. Enough is enough.

It's clear that the democratic process/politicians aren't solving the real issue (the rich poor divide getting worse) and for that reason I support more stringent methods.

We (many industries) should have been striking years ago.

Too many cuts. Too much overwork. All while those at the top take a bigger and bigger slice of the profit.

(I don't work in the railways btw, just a user of them. Too expensive for me to use every day but the problem is not most of the lower down workers!)

No company should be forced to agree to a no compulsory redundancies teem as it will limit their ability to fit resource to need/ demand.

That's my view anyway, but I realise how businesses work and it honestly feels like quite a few in here don't get that.

The problem is professionals who work for the rail networks, nhs, teaching, police, firebrigade, ambulances and all other essential areas are struggling to have a decent standard of living and it's just not fair.

These are people who really genuinely contribute to society

As an NHS worker myself I wholeheartedly believe we should all be earning enough to live reasonable and not be worried 😟

When it takes 15 months to train staff then you can't be short-termist anyway.

Agreed.

Do businesses work (for all) in the UK? super low productivity, demoralised workers.... who to a large extent rely on in-work benefits....

UK has some of the lowest employment rights in Europe.. its not helping is it.

Companies can take a longer term view ...freeze recruitment, don't replace workers who retire/leave...

Some would say it was a great pity airlines sacked workers so easily during CV... the ones that didn't & kept faith with staff... bounced back quicker and made more money in the process too.

What happens when, as cars become too expensive to run.. folk return to the railways? ....will we be feed the same BS from Arriva as we got from EasyJet ?

As @DdraigGoch said, it takes a long time to recruit and train new staff, safety being paramount.

imho a lot of UK management have a macho stance toward employers... people like Harper and Barclay... arrogant & nasty fools, esp Barclay.. a failed negotiator who couldn't even deal with the EU.

Bottom line is the Tories want these strikes, esp ones that really affect the public... Transport and Health.

People need to be able to survive though… 🙄

Well, the successful business work

The unsuccessful ones fail

Business's purpose is to make money but that od dependent on recruiting sufficient skilled staff or committing to skill them during employment

If they can make enough money, yes the business model is working

@Metabigot You ve pretty much made my case..short term thinking.....
the UK has a host of "successful" companies and very low productivity, very low R&D.. and is low wage.. UK Plc just isn't competing international.
Primarily, its down to poor management, rubbish industrial relations & lack of support from Govt.. i.e energy support.

I used to work in Telecoms (manufacture), the collapse of a once vibrant sector is heart breaking.. great world beating products.. UK companies sold to over seas competitors and the UK products binned.. so now we all use overseas vendors... same in cycle manufacture too, despite the boom in cycling over 20 years, not a single mainstream manufacturer.

Of course there are many UK success stories but as a whole? no we are not successful... hence GDP per capita is poor, 23rd or so...

*BlackbirdsSinging · 20/08/2022 22:57
I don’t support strikes.

Wages need to be kept low to stop inflation running away*

My dss has a phd from a Redbrick in conjunction with Cambridge in Economics

He doesn’t support this theory. And it is a theory l think. Not a proven fact..

This isn't a commercial business. This is a public service.

Fully support every one currently striking

Public services are all about money too. They’re more than happy to implement cost saving measures at the expense of both staff and service users. In many respects, they’re not different at all from commercial businesses

I support anyone striking who is being offered less than the rate of inflation as this is a disgrace.

The real issue here is the gap between rich and poor. Is a CEO really worth 150 times the salary of the average full time worker on their company?

Is it right that a footballer is paid as much as 500 nurses?

100% support from me (a train user, don't drive). 100% support to all the strikers. Withdrawal of our labour is always the last resort.

And paying people fairly keeps the economy going. It's not people at the top who pump money onto the high street, it's the middle.

Middle out economics.

Fully support.
I think anyone who doesn’t should listen to Mick Lynch’s podcast interview with James O’Brien. The man talks a lot of sense.
of course strikes are inconvenient- they have to be.
people aren’t asking for rolls Royce’s and Lamborghinis- they want enough money to pay their bills, eat and perhaps take their children out once in a while- and those on hundreds of thousands of pounds a year object.

100% support them, just like I do the nurses, and any other sector striking!

I don’t support strikes. If I don’t like something my employer does, I interview for another job and then resign when something else is lined up.

But I’m happy that the rail strikes mean I don’t have to commute to my office on a cold winter day.

I don't support them, I fortunately have never used a train though

Bit difficult to do that if you’re a nurse or a train driver - there’s a very limited pool of alternative employers.