Southern Strikes

[nievelc]

Anyone else on here absolutely fed up to the max with it.

Bring on driverless trains..

[Ekona]

Doesn't affect me in the slightest, but yes: Sack the lot of them. Can't stand people who go on strike. If you don't like it, go work somewhere else and stop holding people to ransom.

[grahamc]

Anyone else on here absolutely fed up to the max with it.

Bring on driverless trains..

 

Enough for me to move to London!

[coldel]

I cannot stand strikes - its hell but modern day worker in central london can usually bypass it nowadays working at home, although for some appreciate thats not the case. That said, on the odd occasion there is good reason for it, but on the whole they are politically motivated by the unions to maintain support and retain members by being seen to do something.

[nievelc]

Got asked to present my ticket today by the inspector really felt like asking if he was particpating in the strike.. so no more but just ask the question

[coldel]

...a lot of the 'voting' for strikes is a farce in any case. Often you only get something like 40% of members actually bother to vote, even then its often something like 60% in favour 40% against so effectively you area seeing around 25% of the workforce voting for a strike.

[Ekona]

Don't forget Comrade Corbyn wants to repeal the Trade Unions Act that forces at least a 50% turnout in these strikes. What a hero he is!

 

Personally I say that's not enough, it should be a 51% majority of 100% entitled to vote before a strike can be called. Bare minimum. And then line all those striking up outside and shoot them.

[GMballistic]

Doesn't affect me in the slightest, but yes: Sack the lot of them. Can't stand people who go on strike. If you don't like it, go work somewhere else and stop holding people to ransom.

Feel exactly the same Dan.

 

The only time I've ever had any sympathy for or even agreed in part with the reasoning behind a strike was when the local Fire Brigade were striking due to the retirement age that the government intended to raise.

 

Even then though I still didn't agree with them going on strike, although in their defence they did at least have the Army Fire Brigade who covered their shifts so no lives were put at risk or public inconvenienced.

 

Anyone who strikes should be sacked I'd say as there are plenty of others looking for work who would happily fill their shoes.

[Juggalo]

A taste of the future, if Corbyn ever gets in power.

Returning power back to the Unions, and allowing them to hold the country to ransom.

Best thing Thatcher ever did was castrating them.

[MJC]

F*cking hate the strikes. They are striking because they believe that the guards will be made redundant if the drivers get to shut the train doors- despite Southern having assured them that nobody would lose jobs as a result. In essence it's an argument over who gets to press the button to shut the doors- pathetic.

 

Even more so considering there are only around 330 guards employed by Southern, so using the math in Coldel's post, 83 guards are causing misery for millions. I wouldn't mind betting that a lot more than 83 people have lost their jobs as a result of the strike.

[Jetpilot]

And then line all those striking up outside and shoot them.

 

I believe Clarkson got condemned for saying the very same

[Toon Chris]

it should be a 51% majority of 100% entitled to vote before a strike can be called.

 

I wish we could enforce that 51% for general elections.

[Jetpilot]

Its a bit different when you have a number of parties to vote for, its not as simple as one or the another and to be fair, look at the absolute carnage a winning 52% of voters for Brexit caused.

[Ekona]

it should be a 51% majority of 100% entitled to vote before a strike can be called.

 

I wish we could enforce that 51% for general elections.

I'd rather enforce an IQ test before being allowed to vote.

[Toon Chris]

Not really that different. At the last election the Conservative formed a majority government with about 37% of the vote, which equated to a little under 11.4 million votes.

This is from a from a pool of approx 45 million registered voters, which with simplistic maths means about 25% of people voted them in.

I'd prefer propositional representation to ensure you had to go over 50% of the vote to get a majority government. I don't see anything wrong with the democracy of parties in a coalition. After all, who likes every policy of their chosen party. At least that way we might stop peeing off the vast numbers of people who don't vote Conservative but have to have them as the ruling party.

 

Anyway, digression, sorry

[Ekona]

We had a PR vote, nobody cared enough to want it.

 

I quote like the idea of a coalition too, the last one worked much better than I thought it would, but there's no chance of that until the LD can convince people they're not just slaves to whoever gets in, and until Corbyn leads the Labour party to destruction and they split.

[Randy_Baton]

For me what we should have is single transferable vote.

 

This video does a good job of explaining it all.

 

 

On a side note, I live in Sussex and haven't heard anyone coming out about the strikes, the fury is very much aimed at Southern rail and not the staff.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Randy_Baton

[Jetpilot]

I quote like the idea of a coalition too, the last one worked much better than I thought it would, but there's no chance of that until the LD can convince people they're not just slaves to whoever gets in, and until Corbyn leads the Labour party to destruction and they split.

 

The problem is whoever forms a coalition will be slaves to the big two, they may be able to push for a policy or two but thats it, look at the support the Lib Dems lost by forming that coalition, it was political suicide.

 

I guess they may get a few votes back now as labour implode into the trade unions backsides and what of ukip, who is realistically going to vote for them now?

 

The next election "could" be quite interesting, although there will still be moaning no matter who gets in, even if its 51% of the population.

[Ekona]

The next election will probably be the most boring one for decades, assuming Corbyn stays. I can see UKIP getting more votes than Labour come the next election if Corbyn pursues his socialist agenda with the vigour he appears to have.

[The G Man]

Hang on a cotton picking minute

 

Are we really blaming some back bench MP, that just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time for Southern Rail's strikes?!?

 

This is an ongoing, deeply ingrained dispute, that's got FU£K all to do with politics, it's about tax dodging, benefit scrounging, train operating companies, (TOCs), trying to shave 20 or 30 seconds off an already crowded rail network timetable at the expense of passenger safety, which they don't give a Fook about, to receive more state handouts.

 

If you research BR efficiency against privatisation efficiency, guess what, BR was the golden age of rail, honestly, go search on time trains, rolling stock on the rails, staff satisfaction.

 

The guard is there for many different functions, one of which is a double check that the WHOLE train is on the platform, secondly, the doors are not opened on the WRONG side, causing carnage, thirdly, if there is an incident on the line, he is PTS trained and can actually go on track to place track circuit clips to stop oncoming traffic piling into a derailed train, that's just a few instances where guards are invaluable.

 

Feck all to do with Corbyn, more to do with TOCs increasing profits for investors to the cost off passenger safety. The 300 odd jobs may seem insignificant to the ordinary man in the street, but to an industry, they are crucial.

 

Strikers should be shot!! Just recognise that there are industries where the workers do care, remember, this dispute is not about money, Fook me, train drivers could bring the country to a standstill in minutes if it was about money.

 

Apologies for the perceived rant, I work in this industry now and Joe Public has no conception of what is going on, only what is fed to them through a biased media.

[Ekona]

No-one was blaming him for the strikes at all. Juggalo predicts (probably correctly IMHO) that the strikes will get worse if Corbyn ever got into power, but blaming him for the current ones? Nope, not on here.

 

I have no doubt that the TOCs try to save as much money as they can, but at the same time bad publicity does them no favours and they could just as easily see their franchise taken off them and given to someone else, so it's not in their best interests to p*ss too many people off. There's no reason that the driver can't do all of the things you mention, as long as there is a handover period and they understand what's expected from them. Guards will still be able to enter a live track to place the clips, won't they?

[The G Man]

Erm, no your not quite correct there. AFAIK, there hasn't been a single TOC had the franchise taken away from them, there's been a couple that have walked away (East Coast, which was taken back under, effectively state control, started making a profit and then was handed over to Virgin).

 

On a 12 coach train, you just can't see the back of the set, no matter how many monitors you put in, put in poor light/weather, curvature of the line and it gets worse. Virgin have two guards and local station dispatch staff to monitor door opening and closing and their biggest sets are 11 coaches.

 

It's the thin edge of the wedge to take away responsibility from guards, on longer sets. There are DOO trains all over the network, all on shorter trains (except the Stanstead Express, which is a shockingly long train). Drivers make mistakes, they're only human, 9 1/2 hours into a 10 hour shift from 0500, sometimes earlier, in the morning and there's a fair bit of fatigue there.

 

The public are under the misconception that a driver just jumps in a seat and presses a button and a train goes and stops automatically, on the mainline, this just isn't the case. The decisions and concentration that's required from even the shortest journeys are immense, when to brake, what aspect of signal, curvature of the line, gradient, PWay workers, permanent, temporary and emergency speed restrictions, rail adhesion, set braking characteristics, platform length, passengers too close to the platform edge, stopping place, size of set, which side to open the doors, I could go on and on and on. Add into this, more safety responsibility that you, ultimately are not happy about and it's you that will go to jail, not the TOC execs, if a tragedy takes place.

 

If this one aspect of that safety net is taken away, guards, what aspect is next? Shorter breaks for drivers?, the longest PNB is 45 mins depending on shift pattern, 20 mins minimum break, which doesn't have to be given until 5 3/4 hours of driving? Trust me, the public might not know that they need these people, but we in the industry do.

 

It wouldn't matter who is in government, Ghengis Khan for all it matters, the TOCs are still going to put profit before safety which will inherently produce conflict, which will impact on the punter. Rail staff don't want that, they need TOCs to be onside, phew!

 

Took me ages to write that, still a bit Shakey from eating and drinking all day yesterday:lol:

[nievelc]

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