Christmas train strikes

[Darthwazette]

AIBU to wish the train strike situation could just be sorted out?

Theyve just announced strikes right over Christmas. My family were coming to stay with me and now they can’t. I’ve had to cancel so many visits and trips since these strikes began. I wish they’d just reach an agreement already.

I know because I’m nosy and manage to sneak a look at their phones.

So no, they are not looking at work phones. They do have work tablets though, but there is never the right information on it. I have asked whether they get updates, because I’m nosy, as I might have mentioned above.

As I said, I travel, I spend a lot of time on train and tube stations and I see what happens around me. Sorry you don’t like what I see and experience.

You can keep defending them, and I don’t doubt that will, but they are losing public support.

I know because I’m nosy and manage to sneak a look at their phones

How would you know? How? How would you an iPhone is issued by a TOC to an iPhone bought from Apple? They are the same thing.

I think you have a massive problem if you are sneaking a look at peoples phones, let's fact it though, you are not doing this at all, you are just trying to prove you are right and unwilling to accept staff have issued phones that they use throughout their shift.

You say they can't give you information when you ask, but as an experienced traveller who needs no assistance I can only imagine that you don't need to ask unless something g has gone wrong, in which case it's likely they can't tell you because they don't fucking know yet.

You say they can't give you information when you ask, but as an experienced traveller who needs no assistance I can only imagine that you don't need to ask unless something g has gone wrong, in which case it's likely they can't tell you because they don't fucking know yet.

I thought they were supposed to get updates on their “work phones”, right there on their FB?

As I said, I travel, I spend a lot of time on train and tube stations and I see what happens around me.

Right. And again, you responded to my comment about stations who have one/no staff already, so clearly not comparable to the example you are giving.

Sorry you don’t like what I see and experience.

This is weird, you don't have to be sorry, just understand that experience you talk about is completely irrelevant as a response to my discussion about stations with little to no staff.

So the whole strike is about stations with little or no staff?

Christ, they do get updates - not always immediately. In disruption it's really difficult because cancellations go up straight away but what happens next has to come from management who have to put together a new train plan which isn't instant. You then get people wondering why the station staff can't tell them when a train is coming, it's be due they don't know yet.

I would suggest you take a step back from looking at people phone activity,'it's quite creepy.

No. I haven't said this. In fact nobody has said this. Staffing form part of the overall picture.

And yes it will have a bigger impact for stations that will be left with no staff then it will for stations who will still be staffed. That's rather obvious though, you would think?

Its a thread about the strike and the reason for that strike is primarily pay... no?

Pay is just a part of it. The changes to conditions and redundancies attached to the pay deal is why things aren't moving forward.

If they'd been offered a straight 8% at the start this would have been over before it started. Unfortunately this is Tory Britain and only Tories are allowed to increase their wealth unconditional. So to get the 8% the RMT would need to accept a load of other conditions that would not only negatively impact employees and their lives, but put loads of jobs at risks too.

@Iamthewombat you’ve reiterated at 8.30 today that ‘dividends are paid mostly to pension funds’. But dividends are paid to shareholders, and the only shareholder of Abellio (2nd largest rail group) is the Dutch government. We probably all agree with your earlier claim that ‘the Dutch and the Germans are people too’ (paraphrase, possibly). However it is a matter of record that their economies have been doing better than ours for some time now.

One of our issues is with the idea of funnelling money out of the UK to support more successful economies, at the expense of our people, transport system, air quality and economy.

You really are hilarious. I assume that you have read, and misunderstood, a book called ‘Finance for Dummies’.

Upthread you were complaining that returns on pensions were being reduced by low yields on gilts and bonds. Specifically, you said this:

Pensions tend to have large bond/Gilt holdings and who wrecked them?

I explained why interest rates have been low for fifteen years and the link between base rates/QE and bond yields.

Now you’re complaining that higher gilt yields make government borrowing too expensive. Like a financially-illiterate Goldilocks. I’d suggest that you decide which position you’re going to argue, then attempt to argue it lucidly. Right now, you are arguing that both higher base rates and lower base rates are bad.

You stand no chance of being taken seriously unless you can argue logically.

Maybe read that post again. In it, I challenge a poster moaning about businesses paying dividends to shareholders, supposedly at the expense of the employees. Well, that’s how businesses work. Companies have shareholders. The majority of shareholders in large companies are pension funds, and the majority of dividends from large companies are going to those pension funds. That’s why whining about ‘shareholders’ as if they were one amorphous mass of ‘Bufton Tuftons’ (quoting a PP) is foolish: restricting dividends tends to harm the retirement savings of ordinary people, not the champagne budget of caricature Lord Snooty types.

The identity of the shareholders in the TOCs is a separate matter. You make a reasonable point about money leaving the U.K. and being paid to e.g. Deutsche Bahn or the shareholders of Abellio but that’s the reality of capitalism. Plenty of U.K. shareholders are receiving dividends from companies based in other countries, many of which are likely to be subsidised by those countries’ governments. The food industry, for example.

And the bigger picture is that there are many underemployed staff.

I think each time they strike from now on, the pay offer goes down by a small percentage, but not for anyone who comes into work.

And the bigger picture is that there are many underemployed staff.

I am not sure how this relates to my comment that was under discussion about leaving stations unstaffed?

I don't know why you think this.

Is this new version of "sack the lot of them" spouted by people who really think that's an option?

possibly, but their pay demands are utterly unreasonable and they won't compromise and it's really affecting a lot of people and businesses.

Suggest an alternative.

possibly, but their pay demands are utterly unreasonable and they won't compromise and it's really affecting a lot of people and businesses.

The pay offer was unreasonable, though it is likely they would have taken it were it not for the rest of the conditions.

I would suggest a lower pay offer and rethink the reduction of staff, which is going to make life harder for transport users. We need ticket offices, staff at stations and on trains.

of course it's affecting a lot of us but the shite treatment of workers affects a lot of us too. Hence so many rail users support the strikers.

And now you have heard my suggestion, what is yours please?

That's the benefit of this supposedly "privatised" system. The government can micromanage everything to the nth degree but wash their hands of it when it suits.

Conversely BR (the nationalised operator) had a free hand to run the railway within the constraints of the pittance it received from the Treasury.

THIS ISN'T ABOUT PAY.

An acceptable pay offer is on the table. The reason that it has not been accepted is that it has more strings attached than the entire cast of Thunderbirds. Cut those strings and a deal could be done tomorrow.

It is quite absurd. "No trains are running on Tuesday so we should sack all staff and ensure that no trains run for the next 15 months while replacements are trained."