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 fully support them too.

The problem is that time has overtaken them and rail strikes are now no longer as effective as they were. People can plan ahead to work from home so less people are inconvenienced and the RMT can no longer bring the country to standstill. So really it's underwhelming to most people. I hardly even heard much about it other than papers ridiculously trying to make something out against labour MPs. They've got to get smarter.

Of course I support the right of workers to withdraw their labour. Those who strike are bravely, by extension, acting for the good of all working men and women and I stand by them in solidarity. My own profession has striked in the last decade, I hated not being at work, doing my job, and have I'll afforded to lose the pay, and worried about it reflecting badly on me, but as a worker, I feel it is my duty to unionise, and if necessary strike.

Wholeheartedly agree with strike action, it's about time 'they' started serving 'us' again.

It's odd that you couldn't find the other threads about this. The majority supported the strikes.
Hard to find that attitude in the mainstream media or even across mainstream politics ... but actually the majority of the general population support workers' rights.

As more work from home and less use trains to get to work I don't see how they are being more productive. Therefore they are very lucky to be offered 8 percent at a time when inflation is so high and public services will be offered much lower rises. Also some bits of the job of automated such as buying tickets and scanning your ticket to get through on other end of journey. This means we no longer need ticket sellers.

Absolute nonsense. Delivered unthinkingly because that’s what the government has, of course, told you.

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I fully support them. I'd support a national strike too. Enough is enough. Get the Tories out.

Do strikes generally lead to getting the Tories out?

I am now self employed but still maintain my union membership from when I was in paid employment. If they call their members out I will not work and will donate whatever I would have earned that day to union funds.

I support them even though it made our holiday more stressful as they were on our traveling days

Odd too how it seems totally acceptable to the government for people to have massive pay rises/bonus if you earn over 100000 or are the head of a water company or something like that but not if you can't actually afford to pay rent, heating, food and buy clothes . .

I've always supported them
It's just a shame it's the ordinary people who are affected the very most. Which is what the government and the rail companies and the rich people want More division , when the workers should be getting a decent pay deal

Fully support the strikes.

People complaining that it’s made their holiday travel harder - a lot of these low paid workers struggle to afford a holiday. We recently stayed with family for our holiday - otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to afford a break.

I’m in another industry of low paid work with the threat of changes to our T&Cs and pay that will mean I’m worse off financially and practically. We will be striking.

It is interesting that most of the workers who are planning on going on strike - transport workers, healthcare, postal workers - are the ones who carried on going to work through lockdown or keep the country going. Looking after the ill, getting people to work, delivering your essential loungewear to wear for Teams meetings. The heroes are soon forgotten about when you can’t get home from Devon immediately.

Do they still get paid if on strike?

I doubt many on here use the trains much so it's quite easy to support something that doesn't really affect you.

I support them and the wider right of workers to strike.

As a pp said we have had years of below inflation pay rises and yet inflation is at a 40 year high. The link between wage rises and inflation is bogus. Promoted by the people who want to keep wages down to increase their profits.

I don't think that they should be allowed to strike when they can cause so much disruption to the country.

If they don't like it then they can find another job.

Nobody on strike gets paid @pli - personally when we go on strike, I’m going to be doing it because if the proposed changes to our pay goes ahead I’ll have around £12 less take home pay every week. I’m taking the hit of losing a few days pay in the short term as long term I can’t afford to have my pay cut by that much. That’s before I’ve considered the impact of changes to our terms and conditions ( no sick pay, changing our working hours, no overtime pay)

If you don’t like it you can find another way of getting to where you want to be.

Must be more important than people realise if you aren't getting paid. No one I know has any clue what's going on or why

In the the SE and don’t know anyone who supports strikes. Years of tube strikes have jaded people.

WFH has effectively made them inconsequential anyway.

They can get strike pay from the unions

Fully support the strikes. It took me twice as long to get to work due to the train and Tube strikes but that’s a couple of days of inconvenience for me vs. years of pain of low wage for others.

About ticket office workers doing nothing (PP above). That’s until your young teen needs a ticket they can’t work out on the ticket machine, or your older teen gets ill on the train or platform , or your elderly parent needs assistance to get on the train. So do shut up if it doesn’t affect your life.

Lots of jobs have shit pay and working conditions, far worse than rail workers have (care work,retail etc) however they don’t have the backing of a strong union to help them out. Basically the cost of living is shit for most right now and across the board wages have been stagnant for years so does that mean all sectors should go on strike? If anyone deserves a rise imo it’s care workers and childcare workers .

Government interference with the rail companies and Network Rail has prevented any settlement I think. I wonder if this the government's equivalent to the miners strike of the 1980s for them.