The tube (a rant)

[Isambard]

There is a constant difference of opinion over something between any workforce and the management whenever it come to contract negoitations as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

I don't like shoving work onto other people but I'm sure Oxpecker could list the times that the rail unions on the tube have balloted for industrial action over the last few years, in fact he already started to do so on one of the other threads disproving your claim.

 

[Groucho]

It's about a 35 hour week for station staff.

No, it is about an imposed rosta that will reduce the numbers of station staff on duty, in some stations by more than half. Thus compromising safety.

 

[dogmatique]

Whether it has gone as far as a ballot or not, the threat to withdraw services on New Year's Eve specifically is a recurring theme every year.

 

[dogmatique]

No, it is about an imposed rosta that will reduce the numbers of station staff on duty, in some stations by more than half. Thus compromising safety.

Let's be honest here though, are they more concerned with a reduction in the working week, or passenger safety?

 

[Groucho]

Let's be honest here though, are they more concerned with a reduction in the working week, or passenger safety?

Passenger safety. The imposed rostas reduce the working week.

The union baloted on the issue of safety. You may wish to assign more selfish motives to the union members if it makes you feel better, but there is no evidence for it.

Safety has been a mounting issue for some time, and tube workers I know discuss this rather than their conditions. E.g. tube bosees want to maintain the running of the tubes in the event of reports of terrorist attacks (Dunkirk spirit and all that) unions argue that the tube should close at the first hint of a repeat of 7/7. The last dispute was over failure of safety mechanisms and tube bosses insistance that drivers run the trains anyway.

 

[dogmatique]

But why New Year's Eve, rather than a normal commuting day, which would cause more disruption to business and TfL revenues?

 

[Isambard]

But why New Year's Eve

For the love of God..........becuase it puts more preassure on ken Livingstone who has made NYE tubes the cherry on the icing of his cake - transport is his big thing. There will be strikes on workdays too.

 

[dogmatique]

Is it really? Not the congestion charge, free buses for under 16's and increased frequency?

 

[Isambard]

NYE tubes is THE big thing in terms of popularity stakes for Ken.
We have covered this aspect several times on other threads.

BTW, I've asked Oxpecker if he has time to come and counter the bollocks about yearly threatened strikes on the tube on NYE.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Ooh good, I can ask him why they sound a klaxon every time the tube pulls into Brixton too.

 

[dogmatique]

NYE tubes is THE big thing in terms of popularity stakes for Ken.
We have covered this aspect several times on other threads.

BTW, I've asked Oxpecker if he has time to come and counter the bollocks about yearly threatened strikes on the tube on NYE.

Extended NYE tubes have little to do with Ken. They're a corporate exercise in PR for whoever sponsors them, which swell coffers for TfL on a day which would normally see three times as many passengers. This was the case long before the GLA or Ken's office existed.

It's a lot more to do with the inability to pursuade staff to work unsociable hours for a corporate showcase when they'd rather be with their friends and family.

 

[Isambard]

It's a lot more to do with the inability to pursuade staff to work unsociable hours for a corporate showcase when they'd rather be with their friends and family.

Pure fluke I didn't die down there; I'll take the word of tube staff on safety thanks.



@ Mrs Magpie, becasue it is still legally a building site on an operating railway perhaps?

 

[dogmatique]

Cheap.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Pure fluke I didn't die down there; I'll take the word of tube staff on safety thanks.

Shit! You were there? I'll never forget that day. A friend just missed it and for several days I thought my dad was dead down there. He wasn't, he'd actually gone on a Retreat (family euphemism for mental hospital).

 

[MysteryGuest]

Shit! You were there? I'll never forget that day. A friend just missed it and for several days I thought my dad was dead down there. He wasn't, he'd actually gone on a Retreat (family euphemism for mental hospital).

Yeah I'll never forget the horror of it either - the list of the dead included somebody with the same (not that common) name and almost the same age as a good friend of mine who'd gone up to stay with her parents a few days before it happened. Luckily a phonecall to her parents confirmed she was OK (this was in the days before mobiles). I just feel so sorry for the people who died, and their families.

 

[Isambard]

I'd bunked off that day as I often did at the time to go to London and I'd usually be passing through King's Cross at that time of day.

Instead as an exception I decided to stay at home and stay incommunicado from the whole world. Friends that were in the know that I'd normally be there thought I'd died.

The only people who play it "cheap" with passenger and staff safety are those creaming money off the railways.

 

[rennie]

Ooh good, I can ask him why they sound a klaxon every time the tube pulls into Brixton too.

or why 9 out of ten they make the southbound train to brixton wait in the tunnel before reaching the platform? seriosuly, how hard can it be to have one train out the other one in?

 

[Mrs Magpie]

There's a crossing point for a different line near there I believe, reNnIe.

 

[dogmatique]

Yep, what Mrs M said, there's some points there. (Remember a couple of years ago, the long close-down whilst they were replaced?)

Stopping beyond them means you can choose which platform to run in on when one becomes available, hence sometimes having to wait in the tunnel for a free platform.

 

[cherrybaby]

The management screw the public to get maximum profits, the RMT use industrial action to get better conditions for staff. Good on em.

 

[JTG]

Cheap.

No, it's a pertinent point about why it is necessary to prioritise safety on the Tube over and above any other consideration.

One of these days someone will blow themselves up on the underground and we'll be thankful for as many LU staff on the spot as possible.

Oh hang on...

BTW, the proposed new rotas will see staffing levels cut by as much as 70% at the stations affected by July's bombings (source: Oxpecker on the main discussion thread for this). Hope someone doesn't try to do it again when there's even less staff to get people out safely.

 

[scott_forester]

NYE tubes is THE big thing in terms of popularity stakes for Ken.
We have covered this aspect several times on other threads.

I think a lot of people underestimate Livingstone as a politician, twenty years from now few people will remember the investment he put into public transport or the squabbles he had with the RMT, they'll remember 2012 and him bringing it to London. I didn't vote the man but you can't take that from him and frankly I really doubt the RMT want to be in a one-on-one spat with him.

 

[Isambard]

20 years from then people still remember Ken Livingstone.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

innit, I remember Fares Fair when the GLC was still running the city. Loads of people voted him in because of how good transport was then....

 

[Isambard]

There's arguments to be had over the details and the political theory but a LOT of people remember how the GLC made a big difference for Londoners that didn't fit into the Thatcherite plan.

We could start a VERY long list on here.

Clearly, Ken and the GLC played a key role in the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland whilst John Major was still checking the tiddlywinks scores and Rupert Bear in the Daily Express.

 

[Yossarian]

Good luck to the strikers whenever they strike next, but I still think whoever chose to threaten a strike on New Year's Eve for the third year running is a sourfaced killjoy cunt who deserves to spend a significant portion of eternity in a private hell where it's Jools Holland's Hootenanny 24 hours a day.

 

[Yossarian]

Extended NYE tubes have little to do with Ken. They're a corporate exercise in PR for whoever sponsors them, which swell coffers for TfL on a day which would normally see three times as many passengers.

I think most big cities extend the hours of public transport on New Year's Eve and other occasions when a large proportion of the population are going to be staying out later than usual - it's a shame that in this one people are getting squeezed between corporate showboating and (no doubt justifiably) disgruntled workers.

 

[BarryB]

Extended NYE tubes have little to do with Ken. They're a corporate exercise in PR for whoever sponsors them, which swell coffers for TfL on a day which would normally see three times as many passengers. This was the case long before the GLA or Ken's office existed.

It's a lot more to do with the inability to pursuade staff to work unsociable hours for a corporate showcase when they'd rather be with their friends and family.

I cant remember for how many years there has been an all night tube service on NYE. But it is now so established that even without a corporate sponsor it would still be run. Several train companies ran all night train services in the London/South East England area without any corporate sponsorship.

What you say about workers not wanting to work unsociable hours is just plain wrong. Otherwise how do you explain the huge numbers of buses operating all night on NYE?

BarryB