[News] Braking news - more train strikes over the Christmas period announced

[Bozza]

Unless workers and unions are one and the same, I'd agree with that.

Frontline workers should always be fully engaged in systems implementations as they are subject matter experts with hands-on day-to-day operational knowledge and experience.

Unions are not railway operations subject matter experts.

Actually, they probably are, given the apparent glacial pace of change in the rail industry.

Anyway, I've wasted too long on a thread I only opened to see what was going on.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Unless workers and unions are one and the same, I'd agree with that.

Frontline workers should always be fully engaged in systems implementations as they are subject matter experts with hands-on day-to-day operational knowledge and experience.

Unions are not railway operations subject matter experts.

They do listen to their members (or are supposed to).

 

[St Leonards Seagull]

Whilst not justifying it, I don't think it's difficult to explain...

Publicly-funded criminal barristers in the UK: c2,600
Nurses in the UK: c360,000

It's a lot cheaper to give 2.600 people a hefty rise than it is to give 360,000 people.

I wouldn’t worry as by the time as any pay deal will be agreed with nursing unions the number of nurses will be down a fair few if working conditions continue.
At least that’ll save a few quid on any pay rise/real terms pay cut.

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Pretty sure the strike action they are calling will have no impact on the public.
The majority of trains do not run during the period they are striking.

Will it be a knock on later to the public, assuming the engineering works cannot be delivered over Xmas but will be carried into the new year?

 

[beorhthelm]

Err - and umm - the barristers got 15%! And after a 3 year pupilage they are on around £40K PA. So the government gave the magic money tree a good shake to come up with the money for the barristers but SFA for the nurses.

Nurses been offered 4% and a newly qualified nurse is on around £23K PA

I've yet to find any rationale for barristers getting such a huge inflation busting pay hike. Anybody out there got the answer?

"The Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid found that, before expenses, the median fee of a criminal barrister in 2019-20 was £79,800 and that 80 percent earn at least £45,000 after expenses. While junior barristers earn much less in their first couple of years of practice, by their third year of practice the average criminal barrister will earn £65,000 before expenses."

Criminal barristers to receive 15 percent fee rise in September

Criminal barristers will receive a 15 percent fee rise from the end of September, the government has confirmed today (30 June 2022).

www.gov.uk

your link offers an answer, because its small number group affected offering legal aid, costing £74m.

 

[Zeberdi]

The irony is since the Railways Act 1993 prevented the State from running the railways, many foreign state owned enterprises now run private rail franchises in the UK.

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

Not really - just that it’s ironic that privatising the railway services has resulted in State run enterprises from overseas running many of the franchises.

I don’t know what the answer is but it’s clearly not working for anyone at the moment.

 

[schmunk]

Err - and umm - the barristers got 15%! And after a 3 year pupilage they are on around £40K PA. So the government gave the magic money tree a good shake to come up with the money for the barristers but SFA for the nurses.

Nurses been offered 4% and a newly qualified nurse is on around £23K PA

Barrister pupillage is 1 year, not 3, paid £21k minimum in London and £19k elsewhere.

Barrister pay should however be compared to that of doctors, however, not nurses - doctors start of ca. £30k and after 2 years are on £40k.

Pay scales for junior doctors in England

The basic pay scales and salary for junior doctors in NHS training in England for 2019-2020.

www.bma.org.uk

Barristers (particularly in criminal law, on legal aid) are generally not in it for the money, though. Those same top-level law students (you generally need a 1st/2:1 degree from Oxbridge/redbrick to get a pupillage) could instead join a city law firm on £50k, and after 2 years be on £100k+.

Trainee and newly qualified solicitor salaries for UK law firms

This easy-to-use table benchmarks trainee solicitor salaries and newly-qualified solicitor salaries for UK law firms 2018, and includes both London and regional salaries.

www.thelawyer.com

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I wonder why the bots are spreading disinformation? Identical words, phrases, all supposed to be drivers but in the RMT? ASLEF is the drivers union.



This one was old enough to remember the war.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

same as everywhere except the rest of us cant strike because we have no union

You could of course join a union .... or even strike yourself

 

[rippleman]

your link offers an answer, because its small number group affected offering legal aid, costing £74m.

No it doesn't. It doesn't explain why barristers (and I've published what their average earnings are) are worth nearly FOUR times what a nurse is valued at when a nurses average earnings are significantly less.

The overall cost of any deal is not the point at issue here. It is who the government values more. Barristers or nurses. Should we have a poll to see who the public values more?

 

[schmunk]

No it doesn't. It doesn't explain why barristers (and I've published what their average earnings are) are worth nearly FOUR times what a nurse is valued at when a nurses average earnings are significantly less.

The overall cost of any deal is not the point at issue here. It is who the government values more. Barristers or nurses. Should we have a poll to see who the public values more?

Do you have the same beef about doctors' pay? They earn a lot more than nurses.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Most change is good, .

Hmmm .... here's some of the changes being proposed :

That all workforce changes are accepted without reservation - so no consultation
A mass job severance programme - ah, the hub of the issue, less people employed
Driver only operation trains on all services - so once the ticket booths have closed, and there is only the driver on the train, who is there to help at the hundreds of smaller stations ?
Mandatory Sunday working - that's nice, force people to work Sunday
Jobs to be lost in catering services - more job loses
Flexible working contracts, working and rosters - you can bet your bottom dollar that none of this will be in fair of the workers
New annual leave and sick pay arrangements - no doubt less leave and less sick pay

 

[birthofanorange]

Because they target days and times that affect the poor and this time of year is extremely cruel despite their good intentions for themselves

I would suggest that the strikes are targeted to hit the most people possible, thus having a bigger impact, which is basically the very reason for striking. If you believe they're specifically aiming it at 'poor' people, I'm afraid I think you're utterly wrong.

 

[Deadly Danson]

I wonder why the bots are spreading disinformation? Identical words, phrases, all supposed to be drivers but in the RMT? ASLEF is the drivers union.



This one was old enough to remember the war.

And yet, in spite of all of this and the evidence of the last few years, people on here STILL think it's the government who are being reasonable and telling the truth and the unions are to blame for everything. Amazing really.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

Hmmm .... here's some of the changes being proposed :

That all workforce changes are accepted without reservation - so no consultation
A mass job severance programme - ah, the hub of the issue, less people employed
Driver only operation trains on all services - so once the ticket booths have closed, and there is only the driver on the train, who is there to help at the hundreds of smaller stations ?
Mandatory Sunday working - that's nice, force people to work Sunday
Jobs to be lost in catering services - more job loses
Flexible working contracts, working and rosters - you can bet your bottom dollar that none of this will be in fair of the workers
New annual leave and sick pay arrangements - no doubt less leave and less sick pay

Well this is the crux of it.
None of this is modernising the infrastructure, which is what we're led to believe the Unions are opposing.

This is changing the contractual terms of employment.
Whilst this may be "modernising" in many people's eyes, the Union wouldn't be doing their job unless they were seeking the maximum compensation for this change of terms.

 

[Saunders]

You could of course join a union .... or even strike yourself

To be supported by said union they would have to care about my industry and not just take my subs. Though it can be worthwhile, the only person who was originally made redundant at one company i worked for and kept his job was because of the threat of action from his union,. I am talking about people in general dont belong to a union.

 

[Saunders]

I would suggest that the strikes are targeted to hit the most people possible, thus having a bigger impact, which is basically the very reason for striking. If you believe they're specifically aiming it at 'poor' people, I'm afraid I think you're utterly wrong.

you are wrong about that they arent striking during peak hours which would affect the rich and more people

 

[Thunder Bolt]

And yet, in spite of all of this and the evidence of the last few years, people on here STILL think it's the government who are being reasonable and telling the truth and the unions are to blame for everything. Amazing really.

Unfortunately so many people believe the press, and biased interviews where presenters allow government spokesmen to spout lies, without challenging them.

 

[birthofanorange]

you are wrong about that they arent striking during peak hours which would affect the rich and more people

Okay, they're really going for the poor. Righto.

 

[Saunders]

Okay, they're really going for the poor. Righto.

More like avoiding the rich, the people who dont travel weekdays at peak time.