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Well that's a bit shitty. Glad we are not away at Norwich as it's a great awayday on the train.
Strikes on the 18th & 20th August. No game affected.
Strikes again? what is it with train workers, they get paid a decent wedge for just driving a poxy train - yet want more and more! it's a train! not a rocket ship to the moon. They should be lucky to be in good paid jobs these days
If you're against these rail strikes you're an absolute bootlicking tosser.
Happy for scraps while the billionaire class who control our politicians and whose wealth is skyrockeying piss themselves laughing at us plebs?
Only the timing in the different unions all striking at the same time to cause the maximum problems for the country. Then being joined by threat from doctors and other unions, as if a national strike.
That doesn't detract that it may be a justified action for the lower paid workers (Not the drivers)
Never the less anyone who needs a train to get somewhere and that train isn't there will still curse them its human nature.
I've never said the government is the enemy. Many other negatives but not that.
Billionaires have been mentioned on this thread, and it's a sad fact that a single billionaire has much more influence than 10 million of us. And they aren't shaping the world in favour of us
Some people think it's just a case of going forwards or backwards and obeying a few signals. That is far from the case.
Most of a train driver's training is route learning, which on some long routes can take up to a year. A train isn't like a car in terms of its ability to stop quickly and, for safety reasons, a driver will need to know every incline, junction, signal, level crossing etc along the full length of the route. Each driver has to pass a test to prove they have detailed knowledge of the route. Once they are allowed to drive it, if they don't drive it for 6 months, they have to go on a refresher course.
West Brom away is August 17th so it may be the case that last trains leave early that evening in anticipation of no trains the following day. 21st is Brizzle away. Trains might not be up and running again on the (early) Sunday morning after the Saturday strike. Car or coach it is. Especially after the fiasco at Christmas of WMP closing Bordesley Station. No fun being stuck in the arse end of nowhere.
I don't dispute that it's a tough job at all and is rightly well paid.
The issue for me, is that this is an industry that was utterly on it's arse for 18 months. Almost nobody was commuting on trains and essentially nobody was travelling across country. Were it normal times, these jobs would have ceased to exist.
They didn't because of government support, paid for by us (or more accruately, our kids).
That changes things and it's the reason I don't support the strikes. It is also no route out of the problem of inflation. If every sector did this we will merely exacerbate the problem, prolong it and extend the pain.
Pandemics are fkn shit. Wars are fkn shit. Ukrainians are losing their lives and for us the consequences are economic, but they are not solved through actions like this.
No support from me on this occasion
But is it more complicated than driving an arctic lorry? Doubtful
I did hear a programme on radio 4 once. It claimed that train driving was considered a "High Stakes/Low Control" occupation, This combination is meant to weigh heavily on the psychè of drivers to the point they die prematurely because of it, presumably due to stress and heart disease. This was the explanation for their large salary. If this is true then it's understandable they receive good money.
Having said that, JamesWales makes some good points on covid. We all have to take the hit due to the debt built up by furlough