To think this spineless government will give in to grabby train drivers

[LupaMoonhowl]

I live in London and wasn’t aware of this till I saw in mentioned in passing on another thread.
It is utterly scandalous that they can hold the city to ransom like this! How can they cut off key transport for 5 days! And no doubt they’re confident that the spineless, incompetent and public sector/vote buying government and cynical chancer Kahn will give into what they demand.
Back to the 70s 😔😔
Tube and DLR strikes - September 2025
Strikes are planned on the Tube and DLR.

• From Sunday 7 to Thursday 11 September 2025, Tube services will be severely disrupted, with little to no service expected
• Any services that do run between Monday 8 and Friday 12 September will start later than usual with no service before 08:00
• On Tuesday 8 and Thursday 11 September 2025, there will also be no service on the DLR

Yeah, my nephew is a train driver. He drives a train.

They just push buttons - start and stop - no actual ‘driving’ involved or skill required, or passenger interaction unlike bus drivers who do an actual, very stressful, job.
Job should be renamed ‘button-pusher’.

This is true and is also why I don’t understand why we just don’t think good for them. They are in the last thrones of this being a job. Why not go for it before you’re automated out? Gives a generation a better life before it happens.

They have far less than they used to.

Lots of people on hearing there’s a strike will simply work from home.

The people who will suffer most are the low paid and other key workers who can’t work from home. Well done RMT. You get to screw over lots of other union members.

Equal to who the private sector?
If we agree that they should be paid the equivalent of the same role in the private sector then they should be given the same benefits too - 20 days holiday a year, ssp and smp only and a 3% employer contribution to their DC pension.
If the private sector SME's could dip into the tax pot everytime they run short of cash too then we'd all be on DB pensions with 25% employer contributions.

I don't trust driverless trains. Why haven't we got driverless cars yet? - because every time they trial one, it has an accident within hours! Driving a vehicle needs a human eye. I was reading about a serious rail accident being averted because a driver spotted that the points were set incorrectly - not part of his remit to look at the points, but a case of experience telling him something wasn't right. If he'd just let the train run on it would have gone into the side of another train.

I'm a bit confused because you quoted my response to the suggestion that most people can negotiate their salaries individually; but I think we're essentially on the same page!

There are driverless taxis operating in the US.

Agree with PP that the bus drivers deserve the pay rise! What a job

The dlr is driverless

I mean, this is an obvious point right?

I elect a government to oversee and agree negotiations.

the financial decision making is based on extensive modelling none of us have access to and it’s up to their employers to work out what’s affordable and negotiate.

personally, if the country was wealthier than it currently is I couldn’t care less about paying for key workers salary increases.

I think we would all agree with that. It would be great if the country were wealthier and we all had more across the board.

But it isn’t. We are in a very bad state. Train drivers grabbing more for themselves is at the expense of others.

They operate in many countries. If I remember correctly the reason the don’t here is that driverless cars are illegal in the uk

Its shit...there's the London Half Marathon on Sunday so this will stuff runners and onlookers.

Absolute tosh. I remember on this very forum 20 years ago posters hysterically calling train drivers grabby lazy incompetent for going on strike back then and we were positively ROLLING in cash in those days.

a sizeable part of the population have always hated public sector works pushing for salaries and working conditions, whether the tax payer can afford it or not.

My understanding is that night tube trains are not separate drivers but part of their roster pattern. There was not night tube 15 or 20 years ago, so a long term driver would not have had night work.

Up the workers. Freedom for Tooting. I hope that the train drivers get what they want… and I’m a Londoner.

Tube drivers aren’t really driving. The train can be driverless. The technology does all the work. He could lose his job tomorrow and the trains would still be working. But don’t worry he won’t, unions. Mainline trains still need drivers.

London Underground is the responsibility of the London Mayor, so the answer is no to the OPs question.

I would be OK with night tube ending, given how much smaller the evening economy is becoming.

I suppose, however noble or justified their action and demands are, once one sector fights for an across-the-board increase and gets it, then the next one does, and the next one.

The eventual result can be to re-level the playing field - which of course is not a bad thing - but you can potentially end up with nobody better off in the long run.

If they increased the minimum wage to £100/£10,000/£1m an hour, it would sound absolutely amazing - but the end result would be that prices, expectations and inflation would all just rise across the board to compensate.

whenever someone posts a tale of woe about how their employer is shafting them, i always say: join a union.

And this is a good example of why. If train drivers are so valuable to society, their salary needs to reflect that. If the train companies are so cheap that they won't employ enough drivers - that's on them, not on the drivers.

DLR?

I think we are too!

teachers, nurses, refuse workers, council workers.... have unions. And the unions negotiate the pay.

How do people not get this? ah yes, a steady campaign of anti-union rhetoric that (some) workers fell for.

ho hum

But that’s where their employer and where relevant the government’s responsibility lies.

The idea that they shouldn’t ask or demand because they might send the economy crazy is bonkers. That’s not their responsibility.