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Southern Rail

that article by Nick Herbert Conservative MP for Arundel & South Downs saying that most guards have agreed to the terms is the only place I have seen this claim, and I have been looking. I would suggest if that was the case then this would be shouted from the rooftops and another vote would be taken re Stikes, if you see this anywhere else please post as I am calling flimflam (not on you but Mr Herbert).

I have not been arguing about job losses but the balanced article I posted from the Independent did say trains will be able to run without a Guard (or customer service personnel) - even the Nick Herbert says "There will still be a second member of staff on most trains where there's a guard now" so the facts are in the short term some trains will now have one member of staff.

I am sure we can guess what will happen in the long term.
 
r-u-s-x said:
I am sure we can guess what will happen in the long term.
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In the Argus in early December it said that 80% of guards had agreed to the change. I wish I had kept the article.

For the point you mention above you have nothing to back that up, where as we know for a fact that Southern have offered new roles to staff and said there will be no job losses, so I would say the long term future for staff looks pretty decent. If Southern were going to make redundancies they surely would do it now and save money rather than pay 2k for every guard that changes their contract.

The argument defending the strikes just floats from one point to the next without any real appreciation for the facts
 
Grays_1890 said:
In the Argus in early December it said that 80% of guards had agreed to the change. I wish I had kept the article.

For the point you mention above you have nothing to back that up, where as we know for a fact that Southern have offered new roles to staff and said there will be no job losses, so I would say the long term future for staff looks pretty decent. If Southern were going to make redundancies they surely would do it now and save money rather than pay 2k for every guard that changes their contract.

The argument defending the strikes just floats from one point to the next without any real appreciation for the facts
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OK but do you agree that some trains will now only have a single member of staff, because I think that is now apparent.

The rest is conjecture, there are a number of reasons to do it this way rather than mass redundancies. Again would say it's naive to assume that this is not the case.


http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/586233/Rail-union-blasts-plans-more-driver-only-trains

Think my position has been consistent regarding the strikes, not arguing that it is to protect jobs, not even arguing that it is right to have more than one staff member. I am arguing that this was a plan intended at the outset to lead to a strike by the unions as the government wants to take on one of the last militant unions. To lump all the blame on the unions for the strike is blinkered and not seeing the full picture.
 
The plan is to have driver plus the new customer focused member of staff ie ex guards. Not sure who else you need, not like they are serving food like on SouthWestern?

I don't think this is Government trying to smash the last union but now its gone on for so long the affects are being amplified to make it seem that way.

As far as I am concerned no one is losing their jobs, there are no safety issues with the change and the drivers/guards are even getting more money. So this strike is utter hard headedness on the Union side.

Jokes over
 
Grays_1890 said:
The plan is to have driver plus the new customer focused member of staff ie ex guards. Not sure who else you need, not like they are serving food like on SouthWestern?

I don't think this is Government trying to smash the last union but now its gone on for so long the affects are being amplified to make it seem that way.

As far as I am concerned no one is losing their jobs, there are no safety issues with the change and the drivers/guards are even getting more money. So this strike is utter hard headedness on the Union side.

Jokes over
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RMT general Secretary Mick Cash said: "The key issue at the heart of the dispute is that GTR (Southern's owners) have refused to agree that passengers will keep the guarantee they currently have of a safety critical conductor/on-board service supervisor staff on their train in addition to the driver.

They are removing the guarantee to have a guard, so the plan is not to have a driver and a guard on all trains.

The unions have said its not about job loses so this is not really relevant.
 
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I always go out of my way to avoid having to use a train. They are inconvenient, expensive, late, dirty, common, public, aggravating.

But I want a better train service as it keeps people away from the traffic jams on the roads I want to use.

Hopefully they can do away with all staff and automate everything - I heard that the reason so few trains run is that one train can't enter a "section of track" until the previous train has departed the same section. That is like only allowing 1 car per mile of road. Incredible. One day they will automate things and stack train after train on the one section of track. It's just a matter of time.

We used to employ people to take away our dung before the invention of sewers and the flushing toilet.
 
There are a lot of strikes recently, why do you think it's the case,? Are unions more militant are workers more greedy?
 
r-u-s-x01 said:
There are a lot of strikes recently, why do you think it's the case,? Are unions more militant are workers more greedy?
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They don't like Conservative governments. They still believe the silly notion that they can take down governments by not turning up to work.

No wonder the fudgers are scared of retraining, I'm surprised half of them don't need Velcro shoes - and that's the union leaders.
 
scaramanga said:
They don't like Conservative governments. They still believe the silly notion that they can take down governments by not turning up to work.

No wonder the fudgers are scared of retraining, I'm surprised half of them don't need Velcro shoes - and that's the union leaders.
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You think it's all of them? RMT perhaps but all the rest? Junior Dr, teachers also?
 
r-u-s-x01 said:
Air stewards, apparently weetabix, all anti conservative or is there another isdue
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Wouldn't much of that be happening every year? If it weren't for the rail strikes, I doubt it would even be heavily reported.

I'm saying that there tends to be an increase over background levels when there's a Conservative government and that increase is politically motivated.
 
I love how some people think this is just government trying to smash the unions and nothing to do with the Unions being anti government and vindictive
 
Grays_1890 said:
I love how some people think this is just government trying to smash the unions and nothing to do with the Unions being anti government and vindictive
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It's both - it's just that getting rid of unions is good for the vast, vast majority. The unions winning benefits the few.
 
scaramanga said:
Yet there isn't rampant unemployment increasing all the time due to changes in technology. Because, as predicted by just about every economist with half a brain, the time freed up by technology goes to either more leisure or more work, both of which require more services and employment.

We're currently about as close to full employment as we're ever likely to get, despite centuries of technology replacing workers. Again, what makes you think you're so special that you're the first one to be right when making this prediction?
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Don't try to confuse zero hour contracts and such with full employment because that's what you neo-liberal types do. The former has very little relevance to the latter. Full employment= fulltime ongoing jobs!.
 
scaramanga said:
It's both - it's just that getting rid of unions is good for the vast, vast majority. The unions winning benefits the few.
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You should be an ardent supporter of unions then, because that is exactly what your trickle down ideology is about, the few benefiting at the expense of the many. More Double Think going on here Scara. Greed is okay for you, but not for unionists.
 
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Grays_1890 said:
Indeed, some of us get that
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Yeah every year hundreds of building workers are killed and injured at work due to unscrupulous employers taking short cuts, making them work in unsafe conditions and they have been getting away with it more and more as unions have got weaker. Ditto with employers underpaying workers as well as harassing them, young women in particular. Yeah, you get it!
 
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