I’m a member must admit I forgot to send the form back. The union is a joke but worth it for the legal cover and loss of licence insurance
robroy:
SHHHhhhhhhh.
Let’s all just sneak away and leave them to it.
We’ll come back when they have both bored the arse off each other into oblivion.
kr79:
I’m a member must admit I forgot to send the form back. The union is a joke but worth it for the legal cover and loss of licence insurance
You normally only find out how useless your union is when you need it the most. This is something I found out when my pension was reduced by 22% six weeks after I retired. The union man made a half-hearted attempt to get it reinstated and gave up at the first hurdle. I then appealed against the reduction and won the appeal and my pension reverted to it’s original value.
If I had taken the union way I would be something like £37000 worse off.
Winseer:
There’s not a lot any Union can do for individual members now that the very same individual member cannot do for themselves, with the right know-how obviously.“You can’t get me 'cos I’m in the Union” works just as well as “You can’t get me 'cos I know my own rights” or even “You can’t get me 'cos I’ve actually read the T&Cs on my contract”.
Make the effort, and save yourselves from being held back to the speed of the slowest, like some kind of lethiathan convoy.
Unions are for groups. Individuals should be as a gas, free to roam where they will, knowing what they do is the best way to do it. As every trucker out there doing anything more than “local domestic runs” should know already of course.
The Labour party, and it’s supporting Unions have let more than one Trojan Horse in already. They show no signs of stopping as of yet.
Unchecked Immigration so that meaty beefing up of Tax Credits ends up not going to Mrs Mopp getting a job down the local factory - but to Agatha-■■■-lately instead.
Anyone British you know getting any jobs washing cars at those car wash places that proliferate?A party that pushes what I’ve always called “Creeping Atheism” upon us all via the Political and Educational establishment pretty much the entire lives of those people active today.
A bit hypocritical though that this very irreligious-pushing bunch whilst happy to slag off Judeo-Christian Britain in all it’s forms, have instead made some kind of unholy alliance with Militant Islam, with only the occasional ■■■■-up causing the occasional “leaks” where they are not supposed to be in the form of Anti-Semitic remarks getting out from momentum activists in particular. I’m not talking about anything Ken Livingstone says, he’s on another planet compared to the venom I’ve already seen among Momentum activists when it comes to the re-branding where ‘everyone Jewish is a Phillip Green’ and ‘everyone Christian is a hippy arm-waving loon’.
All the while, the hard Left grows in strength until we end up being voted out of Law in our own countries, by which point Islamists can turn upon it’s allies, and discard them once they have finished serving their purpose.
It’s about time that those Labour supporters that are not of the Hard left and Not of Islam - WOKE UP and did what they can to stop this advance.I wonder if the mass resignations of seats currently taking place in Westminster right now - is something along those lines. Let’s not end up leaving our Parliament to the Lefties though please, because all the moderates have chucked it in.
We’re not long away now from being banned from London, and it’s as if we stand like Charles De Gaulle with our beloved capital taken over by the worst enemy imaginable, whilst we’re expected to go into exile to try and fathom a way to win it all back again.
If I were wrong - we would be seeing evidence of Labour councils doing a lot more to crack down on “no go areas” for a start. Perhaps if one were Jewish, you might have enough money in the family to grab the opportunities that get out of here completely, which just leaves the increasingly disenfranchised Christian communities under ever more pressure. They, alas, - cannot quit! They’ve not got the money to go elsewhere.
They are the ones riddled with debts. Atheists riddled with debts don’t have the moral prerogative to pay what cannot be collected. With the increasing numbers of Islamists that don’t borrow at all, Christians feeling the pinch, Jewish getting ever less on their dwindling savings, and Atheists strategically defaulting debts on a nation-busting scale - the time will soon come for the real inquisition to begin. I reckon we’ve got until 2030 at best before it passes the point of no return.0
The first signs that I’m right here will be Theresa May getting a lot LESS seats that what we’ve all led to expect. A lot MORE seats need to change hands in this forthcoming election to keep the rest of us safe as well!
The best result in the election from my point of view here is Labour’s surge comes at the expense of the SNP and the Libdems rather than takes Theresa May’s flimsy majority away from her, forcing a hung parliament which we already know would end up with Corbyn in bed with Krankie - perish the thought!
Conservative - Gain a handful of seats overall, but lose all their remainer MPs in Brexit-voting seats. That would mean losing about 50 MPs and gaining about 60. A total of 340, for an increased majority of 10.
Labour - Far from collapsing, they would win previously safe Tory seats in areas with large numbers of NHS workers in them in particular. Whilst not advancing enough at this stage to win the election - they WOULD gain enough to keep Corbyn at the helm POST election, despite Labour losing. Labour’s tally I can see as them losing around 40 seats, but gaining 100, for a total of 289. The wheels come off Labour’s wagon though, because that impressive rally in Labour’s total comes at the expense of the SNP who I see as collapsing from 54 to 3 seats, and the Libdems would be wiped out if it were not for Vince Cable winning his old seat back making him the only Libdem MP in the house. Expect a lot of newly minted Independent MPs too, but don’t look to UKIP for any.
About time people are starting to talk about the elephant in the room…the one nobody seems to care about or are too scared… ISLAM. Londinstan is just the start.
The hard-left of labour which includes the Unions are more than happy with creeping Islamism as it helps their cause to the utter detriment of everything we have ever fought for.
Why, when it comes to unions people are more than happy to quote how their company jumped in line with the latest pay bargaining and yet can conveniently forget the devastation caused to cities like Liverpool by the Unions?
What company director would consider employing a large labour force here if there was a risk of collective bargaining? The shysters would have the company on its knees within a couple of years.
The public here are all behind the railway strikes at present due to employers wanting driver only trains. Am I the only one who thinks that two blokes on a train each earning £40000 a year each is just too much. Who could make that pay? Yet the unions are prepared to see other hard working people and local business suffer to maintain the status quo…for their members rights to an overpaid job.
Janos:
Yet the unions are prepared to see other hard working people and local business suffer to maintain the status quo…for their members rights to an overpaid job.
I agree that the railway gravy train will come to an end sooner or later, but you are wrong in the above point. ASLEF and the RMT’s raison d’etre is to look after their members’ interests, which as we have seen recently they have done very well with one notable exception. It is not surprising that Joe Public and local businesses who do not contribute to either union are not a priority because why would they be? They are of no concern to a railwayman’s union, and nor should they be.
Janos:
The public here are all behind the railway strikes at present due to employers wanting driver only trains. Am I the only one who thinks that two blokes on a train each earning £40000 a year each is just too much. Who could make that pay? Yet the unions are prepared to see other hard working people and local business suffer to maintain the status quo…for their members rights to an overpaid job.
Tell you what mate, I wish that HGV drivers had some sort of Union, trade or otherwise, that were half as good as the Train driver’s union.
It seems on here now that unions are being knocked and slated not only for being pathetic, but also for being TOO good. 
As I said before in my first post in this thread…, ‘‘Divide and conquer’’ the agenda of the ruling classes, to keep us ‘in our place’ appears to be done. 
By the same token, as you state, … employer’s, management, the general public, and indeed some of the ■■■■ poor unions that profess to ‘represent’ us are also prepared to see hard working truck drivers, on excessive hours to subsidise their low pay rate and co. biased wage structures 
, suffer to maintain their status quo also. 
What about OUR rights to a resonable and fair, (if not well paid) job…Why should many drivers with families have to work in excess of a 70 hour week, for pay that equates to a 50 hour week in real terms, just to maintain an average lifestyle for their families.■■
Or our low pay structures going to continue ad infinitum, to subsidise low transport rates to enable hauliers to compete with each other, and (to use your phrase) ‘‘maintain the status quo’’ of all the parasites in non jobs running a BMW co. car apiece, in the modern ‘‘Logistical Solutions’’ type firms , or as I call them ‘‘Up their own arse transport companies’’ .
The type who have no problem whatsoever of paying a parasitic agency enough for their ‘cream off’ , to hire a driver at an inflated hourly rate, but balk at paying their own men somewhere near the same rate.
Wake up everybody ffs!
So a train crammed with passengers isn’t worth 2 x highly trained and motivated employees on £40k for shift work, ok that’s your opinion and you’re fully entitled to it.
My opinion would be i’d rather have well paid people who value their jobs actually there, than spend countless hundreds of £thousands more on umpteen layers of management to oversee the job ‘cheaper’
Funny thing this ratio of management to workers, as workforces reduce due to increased automation the wage costs don’t reduce they go up as each layer of admin/managerial suits breeds further layers to manage the managers and further layers to supervise those remaining and ever more disillusioned workers…who until all the managers arrived didn’t need layers of supervision because most of these jobs run themselves.
Look at your own workplaces all of you, if half of the managers vanished and never returned would the job come to halt? would it be less efficient? would anyone actually miss them?
If half the actual workers vanished would the job still get done?
Answers on a postcard please.
What’s actually happening in our world of lorries is that the job is being dumbed down so they can get any idiot to do it.
Handily dumbing the job down leads to being able to put any idiot in the driving seat, news of which is greeted warmly at management meetings, costs cut well done chaps, in due course as the ‘skilled motivated’ to ‘couldn’t care less, less skilled’ ratio changes for the worse problems arise, costs escalate the job doesn’t get done customers unhappy mistakes happen costing a fortune to put right.
More managers/supervisory staff recruited to address the problems they’ve now created, who then come up with foolproof systems to stop the slide, thats fine for short time, then they recruit some more working staff, the job being much simpler than it was due to dumbing down means they can take anyone (as pay slides this becomes a necessity), so when the next bunch of deskilled prove in short order that the previous foolproof system wasn’t foolproof enough, they find they need another layer of supervision to plug the gaps.
Haven’t yet touched on the spyware costs to monitor the dumbed down idiots they’ve recruited…to cut costs …when only a short time previously none of this rubbish was needed because well paid well motivated respected skilled workers don’t need spying on in the first place.
Eventually when they’ve scraped to the very bottom of the barrel, the race to the bottom almost won, where are they going to go next.
These companies have kicked caring a toss out of their previously motivated staff, it hasn’t done them one bit of good.
I’ll concede that in the better jobs the workers in too many instances took the ■■■■ out of the job, sickies etc, unfortunately monkey see monkey do, the management at these places are doing exactly the same themselves, all of these people who pull sickies at whatever level are idiots who between them are destroying the few good jobs left.
In many ways the workers have to be more reliable than the management sick notes, because if the worker doesn’t turn up the job doesn’t get done, end of, if a suit doesn’t turn up generally no one notices other than it’s one less person doing sod all other than peering over the shoulder of those getting on with the job they’ve been doing quietly and competently for years, long before that suit came along, and if left alone to do their bloody job, for along after that particular suit has swanned off to better things.
Janos:
What company director would consider employing a large labour force here if there was a risk of collective bargaining? The shysters would have the company on its knees within a couple of years.
The public here are all behind the railway strikes at present due to employers wanting driver only trains.
Nissan, Honda, BMW, TATA, in the automotive industry alone have chosen to buy or build factories here. It seems they appreciate centralised bargaining, and a method of keeping trained, valued, employees happy at work. Fair treatment and reward make for a contented and productive workforce, all win. A somewhat different approach from the Mike Ashleys of this world. Companies that work with Unions seem to do better in the long term than those who fight against the Unions and their own workers maybe?
The public, who are the end customers of the railways, do seem to be behind the Union in the current dispute. Seems they don`t like the Rail companies syphoning off fares into share holder bonuses instead of investing in the future. Short term private profiteering is not a model for a National asset such as the Rail Network.
Juddian mate, a big problem here is (and admittedlly clever) that part of the agenda I mentioned previous, includes putting people down as ‘‘Trouble makers’’ who have views and opinions similar to you and me, who are in reality only up for fair pay and treatment and respect…nothing else.
It is just a clever way of stifling the argument immeadiately for a fair compassionate working environment, and clears the way for all the terminal conformists, arse crawlers and robots to carry on ■■■■ ing up the job to becoming the stress related, daily pushed, low paid, cluster ■■■■ it is slowly becoming today.
Brought about by these guys, while they continue to ignore and slate any kind of driver ‘‘stick together’’ to their own (and everybody else in the job alongside them) detriment. …enough said. 
robroy:
Janos:
The public here are all behind the railway strikes at present due to employers wanting driver only trains. Am I the only one who thinks that two blokes on a train each earning £40000 a year each is just too much. Who could make that pay? Yet the unions are prepared to see other hard working people and local business suffer to maintain the status quo…for their members rights to an overpaid job.Tell you what mate, I wish that HGV drivers had some sort of Union, trade or otherwise, that were half as good as the Train driver’s union.
It seems on here now that unions are being knocked and slated not only for being pathetic, but also for being TOO good.As I said before in my first post in this thread…, ‘‘Divide and conquer’’ the agenda of the ruling classes, to keep us ‘in our place’ appears to be done.
By the same token, as you state, … employer’s, management, the general public, and indeed some of the ■■■■ poor unions that profess to ‘represent’ us are also prepared to see hard working truck drivers, on excessive hours to subsidise their low pay rate and co. biased wage structures
What about OUR rights to a resonable and fair, (if not well paid) job…Why should many drivers with families have to work in excess of a 70 hour week, for pay that equates to a 50 hour week in real terms, just to maintain an average lifestyle for their families.■■
Or our low pay structures going to continue ad infinitum, to subsidise low transport rates to enable hauliers to compete with each other, and (to use your phrase) ‘‘maintain the status quo’’ of all the parasites in non jobs running a BMW co. car apiece, in the modern ‘‘Logistical Solutions’’ type firms
The type who have no problem whatsoever of paying a parasitic agency enough for their ‘cream off’ , to hire a driver at an inflated hourly rate, but balk at paying their own men somewhere near the same rate.
Wake up everybody ffs!
Much truth here!
What’s the number for the Samaritans?
I wasn’t depressed today until I read this thread, so thanks guys!
robroy:
Juddian mate, a big problem here is (and admittedlly clever) that part of the agenda I mentioned previous, includes putting people down as ‘‘Trouble makers’’ who have views and opinions similar to you and me, who are in reality only up for fair pay and treatment and respect…nothing else.It is just a clever way of stifling the argument immeadiately for a fair compassionate working environment, and clears the way for all the terminal conformists, arse crawlers and robots to carry on [zb] ing up the job to becoming the stress related, daily pushed, low paid, cluster [zb] it is slowly becoming today.
Brought about by these guys, while they continue to ignore and slate any kind of driver ‘‘stick together’’ to their own (and everybody else in the job alongside them) detriment.
The funny thing is, people like us arn’t actually trouble makers, if anything we’re the opposite.
If a job is good, well paid, where people are treated with respect, a decent place to work, then people who know what the rest of the working world is like know that the only way good jobs stay good jobs is if it pays the company to operate like that, in other words people who are well treated and appreciate it make sure they give a quality days work for that quality days pay, no profit (or no customer service if its own account) then the job won’t be around for long.
They also have the good sense to look after the customer, without whom after all none of us would have a job anyway.
Being a good worker doesn’t mean going round like your arse is on fire, that always ends up in grief sooner or later, plus idiots in offices think cos billy whizz can knock that 12 hour job off in 9 that everyone can and there’s always one billy big ■■■■■■■■ in the office reckons he’ll force them to do it (and get himself noticed by the higher ups ), so they try to pressurise those who either won’t or can’t safely work like that, those who won’t work like that won’t even try to keep up with flyers and won’t worry two hoots about the sarky comments for the bunch behind the desk, but those others some of whom maybe lorry driving isn’t their natural forte, who shouldn’t be trying to rush then get hasselled into doing so and we see the end results every day on the road and read about them here in posts, either asking about multiple damage and insurance reveals or asking if it’s ok to drive over your 10 hours when the far too much day’s work brilliantly unplanned by a half wit with a postage stamp size map of the country didn’t pan out
Franglais:
Seems they don`t like the Rail companies syphoning off fares into share holder bonuses instead of investing in the future. Short term private profiteering is not a model for a National asset such as the Rail Network.
You’re falling into the same trap as The Guardian and others on this one. Profit percentages among the railway companies are peanuts for the amount of money invested and they are just a few percent. The hackneyed ‘creaming off shareholder bonuses’ line is ■■■■■■■■. It is absolute and utter ■■■■■■■■.
As for a lack of investment, look up how many billions have been spent on new trains since privatisation, and continues to be spent. Where’s that all coming from? It’s not public money, that’s for sure.
Juddian:
robroy:
Juddian mate, a big problem here is (and admittedlly clever) that part of the agenda I mentioned previous, includes putting people down as ‘‘Trouble makers’’ who have views and opinions similar to you and me, who are in reality only up for fair pay and treatment and respect…nothing else.It is just a clever way of stifling the argument immeadiately for a fair compassionate working environment, and clears the way for all the terminal conformists, arse crawlers and robots to carry on [zb] ing up the job to becoming the stress related, daily pushed, low paid, cluster [zb] it is slowly becoming today.
Brought about by these guys, while they continue to ignore and slate any kind of driver ‘‘stick together’’ to their own (and everybody else in the job alongside them) detriment.The funny thing is, people like us arn’t actually trouble makers, if anything we’re the opposite.
If a job is good, well paid, where people are treated with respect, a decent place to work, then people who know what the rest of the working world is like know that the only way good jobs stay good jobs is if it pays the company to operate like that, in other words people who are well treated and appreciate it make sure they give a quality days work for that quality days pay, no profit (or no customer service if its own account) then the job won’t be around for long.
They also have the good sense to look after the customer, without whom after all none of us would have a job anyway.Being a good worker doesn’t mean going round like your arse is on fire, that always ends up in grief sooner or later, plus idiots in offices think cos billy whizz can knock that 12 hour job off in 9 that everyone can and there’s always one billy big ■■■■■■■■ in the office reckons he’ll force them to do it (and get himself noticed by the higher ups
Many firms don’t subscribe to the ‘reap and sow’ concept.
If a good driver is happy in his job, content with his t.s and c.s, and treated with respect he goes on to be a very good, helpful productive driver, and both sides are happy.
Fair enough you can get similar production from the treatment you mention, but a let’s say… lesser quality production from the quality of drivers these firms attract, and all the balls ups and accidents that going like your arse is on fire while being puhed mercilessly, brings.
Respect goes two ways if you are given it you reciprocate, if you are treated like ■■■■, you tend to negatively react to that…well those with a brain do anyway.
To illustrate this, as I mentioned on another thread, at my last visit to our main depot, I noticed that instead of a clean civilised shower and toilet block for visiting co. drivers (the old 70s style bog with no soap and paper had gone) we now have a…portaloo 
Not used by the office staff and management needless to say.
…point made in a nut shell.
I told one of them when you lot use that ■■■■ insult of a facility, only then will I.
A dedicated Hgv drivers union could never achieve what the RMT does for the trains and tubes. There’s nothing stopping us all joining said union after all. They trump us as it’s a closed shop with no competition. Only one operator per service. It’d be like one haulier having a specific a to be job. If the train drivers withdraw labour, nothing moves. If a lorry driver withdraws labour, someone else jumps in the seat. Not an ideal situation but all we have, unfortunately
Olog Hai:
Franglais:
Seems they don`t like the Rail companies syphoning off fares into share holder bonuses instead of investing in the future. Short term private profiteering is not a model for a National asset such as the Rail Network.You’re falling into the same trap as The Guardian and others on this one. Profit percentages among the railway companies are peanuts for the amount of money invested and they are just a few percent. The hackneyed ‘creaming off shareholder bonuses’ line is ■■■■■■■■. It is absolute and utter ■■■■■■■■.
As for a lack of investment, look up how many billions have been spent on new trains since privatisation, and continues to be spent. Where’s that all coming from? It’s not public money, that’s for sure.
. . . . … … Public Money… . . . . . In 2016 £3.2billion. net. . . . . …
orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_fil … 015-16.pdf ( Note its a orr.gov.uk site) Profit percentages are low, youre correct, but look at how the government is still subsidising rail ! How can private shareholders take ANY money out of a subsidised rail system.
Through the rail system as a whole the Gov provides 36% of the funding. Passengers provide 50%. I can accept that a Government can and should provide funding for a National rail system, as we all benefit: passengers on trains keep them out of cars and coaches etc. But how can we still have this bizarre situation where the Gov (hence tax paying thee n me) pay to support shareholder payouts by a Private Rail Company?
I`m not normally a Guardian reader, but you may appreciate this article:
theguardian.com/uk-news/201 … ds-subsidy
“Three train operators – Virgin, Northern Rail and Transpennine – handed almost £100m to shareholders after receiving more than £1bn in government subsidies, including their portion of the grant to Network Rail.” In the interest of balance: “However, operators said their finances were open and transparent and profit margins averaged 3%”.
kr79:
I’m a member must admit I forgot to send the form back. The union is a joke but worth it for the legal cover and loss of licence insurance
Has anyone actually been able to claim on that, in history?
OVLOV JAY:
A dedicated Hgv drivers union could never achieve what the RMT does for the trains and tubes. There’s nothing stopping us all joining said union after all. They trump us as it’s a closed shop with no competition. Only one operator per service. It’d be like one haulier having a specific a to be job. If the train drivers withdraw labour, nothing moves. If a lorry driver withdraws labour, someone else jumps in the seat. Not an ideal situation but all we have, unfortunately
I reckon this would only work if we teamed up with DVLA. If we didn’t,- the government would just tell DVLA to go about a harsh policy of taking away people’s HGV entitlements over the slightest thing, which funny enough - I’m seeing some evidence of already happening of late. Years ago, maybe one or two drivers per year out of a depot of 200 might lose their entitlement. Recently that has process seems to have stepped up markedly, but no one is talking about it.
Feeling down? - You have to re-apply for your licence. We can’t have depressed drivers going about “Furious Driving” now can we? (not that this has ever happened to a non-terrorist UK driver as yet)
Forgot to take your medication? - Temporarily banned, until you’ve had a clean month back on it again.
Gone over your hours? - totting up points added to any endorsements you already have can revoke your licence - coming right up!
This doesn’t affect me, as I retain my spotless licence BUT it alarms me that a disproportionate number of drivers I know have, in the past year - lost their licence to some trumped-up medical charge.
“Drivers being suspended” is another thing that takes licence holders off the road of course, but without removing their licences this time. The suspension however does ensure that this particular driver cannot just sign on with an agency, and take their talents elsewhere, so for all intents and purposes - being suspended achieves the same thing: Removes yet another driver from our roads, whilst “White Van Man” drivers proliferate. FFS Even this government is having trouble levelling the playing field for the taxation of this lot! How about some tax relief on OVERTIME for the workers, that would benefit ALL?
In any case, I don’t see White Van Man voters as handing Theresa May the thumping majority she thinks she’s going to get. What are we going to do when the rest of the country is told to send all it’s product to support benefit claimant drivers around London? You cannot seriously tell me that this coming White Van Man culture is going to take the model of Parcel Delivery where you’ve got armies of young people working 80+ hours a week for their meaty sounding Grand a week…
Franglais:
I can accept that a Government can and should provide funding for a National rail system, as we all benefit: passengers on trains keep them out of cars and coaches etc. But how can we still have this bizarre situation where the Gov (hence tax paying theenme) pay to support shareholder payouts by a Private Rail Company?
Because were it not doing so and if the railways were still state-run, it would cost the government a lot more money than it does now.
Look at all of the other major public sector services; most hemorrhage money, are massively over-staffed, and as havens for the otherwise unemployable are afflicted by the typical public sector incompetent and jobsworth-type fools that means that nothing ever gets done within a reasonable timescale. That isn’t going to happen at Stagecoach, Firstgroup and the like.
The RMT and ASLEF dispute with Southern Rail and the government has been mentioned along with salary levels. Not many weeks go by without some green with envy post materialising enquiring about how to become a train driver, yet equally given the chance we see also opportunity taken to deride the very people we see as having a better deal. Just about every other day we see someone complaining about some aspect of their terms and conditions, pay or treatment by their employer. Frequently one of the answers to such a post concludes that likely the situation would not have arisen if the workforce had been union members. We see also the assertion that unions are dinosaurs and irrelevant to the modern workplace which needs to modernise, this often accompanied by the claim that: “I can look after myself, if I don’t like it I can always leave and work elsewhere”. That’s fine it works for some, but not everyone.
The unions are there to protect the weak, the ones too timid, threatened, tongue tied or financially desperate to speak up for themselves. Not everyone can jump readily from a job in which they are unhappy into another at the drop of a hat, there may not be a suitable alternative within economic commuting distance. To cut an article in a recent RMT monthly magazine down to a few words the following unfair dismissal case illustrates why unions are good thing. An employee had been on sick leave IIRC following an injury. It was becoming clear that he was unlikey to be able to return to his job. He had undergone several medical assessments by the company doctors. As a long service employee his T&Cs dictated that he had been offered a generous severance package. He had found that cannabis relieved the pain he was suffering more effectively than anything else. During the course of one of his medical assessments he had a routine drugs test. This proved positive for cannabis. The company sacked him for being present on company property for this medical assessment while under the influence of drugs. The Union funded a long winded legal case which went to court rather than tribunal, the result of which was that the company were held by the judge to have acted in an underhand and obstructive manner. The man’s severance pay was reinstated. Without the support of his union the man could never have won.
The train guards’ dispute has dragged on for over a year now, it will no doubt become a significant propaganda issue from the tories in the forthcoming election campaign. They will use it in an attempt to rally all daily mail, sun and telegraph readers to the blue rinse cause - stamp on the workers, divide and rule and put the plebs in their place. The whole issue could have been resolved months ago, the railway customers still want a properly trained second man on every train, however the government has managed to orchestrate the progress of all negotiations into prolonging the dispute until the travelling public just wish to see an end to the disruption, no matter what the actual outcome entails.
What is behind this? The Govenment and rail operators wish to introduce one man operation to save labour costs. They have sucessfully manged to concentrate the publicity upon button pushing when that is only a part of the issue. They wish to see their second man employed as a revenue collector free to ride the train ensuring passengers have valid tickets, but only present on board during the most lucrative sections of the journey. Given this limited role the training to undertake this work is nowhere near the level necessary to deal with an emergency which incapacitates the only other crew member. Cleverly sidestepped is that a guard’s training not only deals with emergency situations, but relates his response to the timetable and the section of track in which such emergencies may occur. ASLEF and the RMT concentrate on the above knowing full well that the intention of the operators, if they can get away with it, will be to employ part time or zero hours minimum wage second men on peak hour services only. We have seen the government and the operators frustrated in their aim in spite of repeated recourse to the courts; where they have lost their case.
We hear the argument from some that these guards are grossly overpaid and that the money saved would result in cheaper fares and more money to invest in the railway. Really? are we that dim? it will result in increased profit for the train operator percolating through to the shareholder investors who happen to be state owned foreign railways. The money saved will benefit German passengers and British taxpayes will foot the bill for domestic railway improvements. Whatever amount could be saved needs to be valued against one life lost which could have been prevented. But then sachi and sachi and miscon de reya already have that factored in to the calculations.
What has been most noticeable has been that the ASLEF leadership has failed to grasp the depth of feeling their members have about the issue. They have ■■■■■ footed around the actual wording of the employers’ proposals in the hope that they can secure a majority vote for their deal, rather than truly represent their members’ wishes.
Just as we have seen consistently from the remoaners, if the outcome of any ballot/ referendum does not go the way the losers want then attention is focussed upon the difference between for and against in percentage terms and actual numbers of voters. If at all possible focus then shifts to the percentage and numbers of those entitled to vote against those who did not do so. The automatic assumption from the losers is that ALL of those who did not vote would naturally have voted in line with THEIR views. Conversely we can be sure that if the ASLEF ballot had resulted in a one vote majority for settlement on the employers’ terms, then this would have been met with a deafening silence.
If there is a significant tory victory in June we shall see a bill before parliament to declare any union ballot FOR industrial action declared null and void if there is not something like a 75 % majority in favour AND an 85% turn out. There is also a very good chance that lorry drivers will be included in the category of workers who will not be legally able to strike.