The whinging bitches politics poo-bin thread

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davy83

davy83

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P5Nij said:
Yes, believe it or not 'walking time' has to be factored into jobs and has to fit around the working timetable, for both passenger and freight drivers. Some of the locations we work to and from on the freight side are in awkward places where there are no stations, taxis are also used in some cases. I'm based at Rugby and often have to travel up to Crewe to relieve trains there, the traveling time is factored in plus it takes at least twenty minutes to walk from the station down to the yard before relieving the train. The same applies when travelling to the southern end of the WCML when woring out of Wembley Yard, everything has to be very tightly timed to make each shift we do as efficient as possible, there are also legal requirements for breaks to be factored in which isn't as easy as it might appear. The terms and conditions have changed hugely over the years with concessions given on both sides of the table, but we're certainly not as stuck in the '70s as some would have you believe. Improvements in working conditions can take decades to put in place.

Apologies for what probably comes across as a minor rant, but I get fed up of people often thinking the railways and those who work on them are fair game, just because most of us happen to be in a union or some of us are well paid compared to millions of others. There are many other walks of life which are just as heavily unionised but they don't get half the stick we do. And it's not necessarily a given that every union member is a raging leftie either, in my case I opted out of a portion of my subs going to the Labour party many years ago and will never vote Labour in my lifetime. A common theme amongst those talking about the rail strikes is ''well, what about the cleaners, teachers, nurses, Police etc..?'', well I agree, they deserve to be paid much better but attacking those in the rail industry who are lucky enough to be paid more isn't the answer. The answer is for them to get their various unions working harder for them, or start a union of their own. Someone on another forum said to me the other day ''if rail workers don't like the money they should just leave'', this doesn't actually solve any of the issues though, and throwing the same thing back at nurses, teachers, police etc doesn't go down well.

I imagine there are a lot of members on here who are paid several times my (very good) salary with just as much responsibility (or not maybe?), or are savvy enough to make money from shares, options, markets etc and fair play to them, but I honestly believe I earn every penny. There is far more to being a train driver than simply pushing buttons and pulling levers, the knowledge we have to learn and keep competency in and responsibility is why we're so well paid. My route and traction knowledge alone would make some people's heads explode. I've dealt with all kinds of sh*t in my time on the footplate, from suicides (two so far, witnessed another one last year and have had hundreds of near misses), trespassers, vandalism etc, which most people don't take into consideration.

It's also worth pointing out that less than 2% of drivers are in the RMT and the number actually striking this week is probably just a handful. 96% of drivers are in ASLEF and haven't all been balloted for strike action, the other 2% are not in any union at all. Most of the those on strike are signallers, signalling engineers, P/Way staff, cleaners, fitters, technicians, backroom staff and lower managers etc.

Right, rant over - first one to spark up and say ''you don't even have to steer the bloody train'' get's a virtual fat lip! ;)
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it seems a shame that 2% of your colleagues can grind the whole show to a halt? But i guess industrial action is inherently not democratic.
 
Oneball

Oneball

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davy83 said:
it seems a shame that 2% of your colleagues can grind the whole show to a halt? But i guess industrial action is inherently not democratic.
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2% of his colleagues didn’t. Train drivers weren’t on strike.
 
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