But surely the drivers job is shared by signal men, platform staff, etc. Even our back end station is manned during busy periods. Since Southern have been in the media with conductors going sick and not turning up for work, they have suddenly come out of the wood work and put on an elaborate flurry of PR trying to be recognised.
Frankly the use of a conductor especially on the main routes duing peak when station staff are plentiful is absoultely not needed. In the 12 years I have been commuting with every person that's fainted or needed a ticket the conductor has not been there to help, in fact when you call the emergency buzzer, you get through to the driver!
The role will soon be extinct and any measures to prevent that from happening are frankly getting in the way of technology.
On the above note about people losing their jobs because of the strikes: anyone being sacked because of the strike either needed to find a better employee or a bit of personal motivation to not be a on a final written warning.
Though it stands that someone is always paying - I'm driving 15miles on top of my 1hr 30 commute to keep myself in the office, or I work from home, in which case my colleagues get a*rse that someone's working smartly instead of seen to be 'chopping wood' maybe i should heed some of my own advice..!
Southern have already secured the jobs but put the caveat in that trains are not guaranteed to run without a conductor i.e. conductors decide to be sick and bring down the service, yet the RMT still will not listen. Frankly I would have offered 4k instead of 2k and given them a 1.5k payrise. 2k now and 1K January 20th and 1k March 2017 pending a cease on strike action.
RMT need to go to be legally analysed to the impact and loss of earnings during this period with a substantial fine for the guilty party
Tim