TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by delbert »

:thup: ^^

A simple thumbs up doesn't work so well when the page changes :smiler:
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by -DL- »

hammers92 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 10:27 pm Eh? The lack of union representation in the private sector allows employees in various companies and industries to have the royal piss taken out of them. Unions can bridge that gap in protecting your terms and conditions.

If your issue is tax, take it up with those who have been in power for the past 12 years. Our tax system needs an overhaul, but that’s an entire different debate.
Maybe it needs to be looked at as to why people don't join a Union. I said a few days ago, I've only ever had one shop steward that genuinely has his members interests at heart, which is my current one. The others have been as self serving, with only their own and their cronies interests at heart, and being no different to the companies they are supposedly up against.

I can fully understand why so may see there £6.75 a week subs is a waste of money that they don't want to be part of.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by hammers92 »

-DL- wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 9:23 am Maybe it needs to be looked at as to why people don't join a Union. I said a few days ago, I've only ever had one shop steward that genuinely has his members interests at heart, which is my current one. The others have been as self serving, with only their own and their cronies interests at heart, and being no different to the companies they are supposedly up against.

I can fully understand why so may see there £6.75 a week subs is a waste of money that they don't want to be part of.
I'm sorry to read that you haven't had a great experience. I'd be interested to know which union it was, Unite? Since Sharon Graham (new General Secretary) has come in, there's been a big push away from getting involved in mainstream politics and doing the bread and butter jobs a union is supposed to.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by the pink palermo »

I think Mick Lynch has articulated very well one of the key reasons people join unions in lower numbers these days.

He spoke yesterday about the threshold Unions have to go through to get a legally mandated strike called.

The barrier is significantly higher than that which took the Nation out of the EU or that has elected any Government for decades in terms of turnout.

The Tories in particular have whittled away at Union powers to the point where any spurious strikes can be called is non existent.

For both Sunak and Truss to state they would go further is a worrying trend. Hopefully we shall see SKS in Downing St in a couple of years to roll out a legislative programme that rebalances the situation.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by -DL- »

hammers92 wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 9:37 am I'm sorry to read that you haven't had a great experience. I'd be interested to know which union it was, Unite? Since Sharon Graham (new General Secretary) has come in, there's been a big push away from getting involved in mainstream politics and doing the bread and butter jobs a union is supposed to.
It's not just me mate, it's all round the bus industry - Unite hasn't got the best reputation, and they've a long way to go before there is trust again. Sadly, Unite is the only Union the big operators recognise - but when you have shop stewards that are mates with management and directors and they make no secret of it when they post it on Facebook that they're out with them for meals, days out, and one even goes on holiday with a director, you know you may as well keep your subs in your pocket.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating as to whether she is a woman of her word - though I'm not so sure what she can do at grass roots level when these shop stewards keep on getting voted in by those whose interests they look after - the long termers on the cushy contracts that are on £6-10 an hour more than the new comers, those who are actually getting stitched up, rather than those who have spanking new cars in the car park with private plates, and regular holidays to far flung corners of the world - and the only people that have allowed that to happen have been the Unions.

These are not anecdotal stories either, it's what I've seen in my 7 years in the industry.

Thankfully, where I work, there isn't such a disparity, but London and elsewhere, there is.

Add to the fact when I needed Unite for something beyond the capabilities of my shop steward - legal advice for attempted constructive dismissal - I never even so much as got my calls returned.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by bubbles1966 »

hammers92 wrote: Sun Jul 31, 2022 10:27 pm Eh? The lack of union representation in the private sector allows employees in various companies and industries to have the royal piss taken out of them. Unions can bridge that gap in protecting your terms and conditions.

If your issue is tax, take it up with those who have been in power for the past 12 years. Our tax system needs an overhaul, but that’s an entire different debate.
My point has nothing to do with tax.

It is entirely about public services being there to serve the public, not the employees/unions.

Unionisation often actively works against the interests of the public and distorts who the services are run for and in whose best interest they function. It's especially so in virtual monopolies.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

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bubbles1966 wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 11:11 am My point has nothing to do with tax.

It is entirely about public services being there to serve the public, not the employees/unions.

Unionisation often actively works against the interests of the public and distorts who the services are run for and in whose best interest they function. It's especially so in virtual monopolies.
Yet we have one of the safest railways in the world because of the unions.

Now the gov want to cut maintenance levels .. yet as seen with the heat wave the infrastructure is crumbling due to years of underinvestment.

If the infrastructure was up to standard then maybe cuts could take place
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

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bubbles1966 wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 11:11 am It is entirely about public services being there to serve the public, not the employees/unions.

Unionisation often actively works against the interests of the public and distorts who the services are run for and in whose best interest they function. It's especially so in virtual monopolies.
100% agree with the first sentence.

On the second, are you suggesting the Government should dictate the terms and conditions of public sector workers? The Government have eroded rights and pay for the past 12 years across much of the public sector leaving morale on the floor, some of the workforce leaving (especially in the NHS) and levels of bullying/stress/burnout rising.

That does nothing for the public and delivering a good service. Government should work with unions on these issues, forget about pay entirely for a moment and increase job satisfaction in the sector.

That, and investing in public services, delivers better outcomes for the taxpayer.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by SammyLeeWasOffside »

Pay has been eroded over much of the public sector over the last 12 years? Have you got figures?

I keep seeing wages have fallen and numbers of staff reduced yet overall wage bills keep going up.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by Danny's Dyer Acting »

SammyLeeWasOffside wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 12:02 pm Pay has been eroded over much of the public sector over the last 12 years? Have you got figures?

I keep seeing wages have fallen and numbers of staff reduced yet overall wage bills keep going up.
I'd imagine you'll see similar to this across most areas of the public sector. The salary has gone up but the value of it has been eroded.

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https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resour ... 10-to-2020
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

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SammyLeeWasOffside wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 12:02 pm Pay has been eroded over much of the public sector over the last 12 years? Have you got figures?

I keep seeing wages have fallen and numbers of staff reduced yet overall wage bills keep going up.
The Guardian links to the ONS survey where it explains more.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... -in-charts
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by SammyLeeWasOffside »

Danny's Dyer Acting wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 12:10 pm I'd imagine you'll see similar to this across most areas of the public sector. The salary has gone up but the value of it has been eroded.

Image

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resour ... 10-to-2020
Isn't this one of those statistical things you can get to make any argument. It's taking a person's salary in 2010, applying it to someone in 2020 and implying the 2010 person hasn't had a pay rise.

The only way it stacks up is someone on average pay in 2010 still being on average pay in 2020. In the NHS that's almost impossible with built in pay increases. How much is someone on average pay in 2010 now paid would be a more accurate measure.

It also matters how they have calculated average pay. I saw a similar graph for police pay (scales for which actually did fall in 2013). It took average as the total of all pay bands in a scale divided by the number of bands in that scale. So for a constable it added up the 7 scales and divided by 7.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

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SammyLeeWasOffside wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 1:20 pm Isn't this one of those statistical things you can get to make any argument. It's taking a person's salary in 2010, applying it to someone in 2020 and implying the 2010 person hasn't had a pay rise.
It shows that pay hasn’t maintained the speed of the rise from cost of living and inflation resulting in people being less well off.

Which comes back to my original point, unions are there to fight and protect member’s terms and conditions who are worse off since 2010.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by Danny's Dyer Acting »

SammyLeeWasOffside wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 1:20 pm Isn't this one of those statistical things you can get to make any argument. It's taking a person's salary in 2010, applying it to someone in 2020 and implying the 2010 person hasn't had a pay rise.

The only way it stacks up is someone on average pay in 2010 still being on average pay in 2020. In the NHS that's almost impossible with built in pay increases. How much is someone on average pay in 2010 now paid would be a more accurate measure.

It also matters how they have calculated average pay. I saw a similar graph for police pay (scales for which actually did fall in 2013). It took average as the total of all pay bands in a scale divided by the number of bands in that scale. So for a constable it added up the 7 scales and divided by 7.
I mean, you could try to make that argument but then all you're really saying is that we've devalued the experience and professional improvement that person has made over the last 12 years. If that's the situation we're happy with as a nation then that's fine but it would also go some way to explaining why the quality of care in the NHS is supposedly falling off a cliff.

I'd also suggest that graph isn't helping make that point though as it shows both specifics like starting salary for nurses and larger groups like all consultants or doctors.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by bubbles1966 »

SammyLeeWasOffside wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 1:20 pm Isn't this one of those statistical things you can get to make any argument. It's taking a person's salary in 2010, applying it to someone in 2020 and implying the 2010 person hasn't had a pay rise.
People at the bottom of the scale got a 30% pay rise over three years not so long ago. They have also seen huge uplifts on the amounts that have been taken out of tax in the last decade or so.

The whole nurse pay rate thing is a bit deceitful. Nurses have highly variable skill levels that certain pay bands are meant to cover. Unsociable hours uplifts kick in every day also.

So when they quote you a band 5 nurse - they are usually quoting something akin to a standard day job rate for a new entrant. They are not talking about highly skilled nurses working all the hours God sends in an ITU.

You are also correct in thinking that there is an automatic increment system (though now based on some rudimentary performance and training criteria) that uplifts pay every couple of years these days. Many NHS staff will get two payrises in a year - a bit like the now defunct civil service system of two pay rises annually - one negotiated, one time-served. There is a finite limit to it though in terms of number of uplifts and however many years in a pay band.

Pensions are also index-linked but with an additional multiplier.

In my experience, staff do not generally leave because of the conditions around holidays, pay, pensions - if anything these things keep them in post long after they wish they had gone - they leave because they dislike the culture they work in and dealing with some members of the public. Or they just get bored.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by delbert »

Danny's Dyer Acting wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 12:10 pm I'd imagine you'll see similar to this across most areas of the public sector. The salary has gone up but the value of it has been eroded.

Image

https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resour ... 10-to-2020
That sort of undermines the argument for unionisation in the private sector.........
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by SammyLeeWasOffside »

Danny's Dyer Acting wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 1:40 pm I mean, you could try to make that argument but then all you're really saying is that we've devalued the experience and professional improvement that person has made over the last 12 years. If that's the situation we're happy with as a nation then that's fine but it would also go some way to explaining why the quality of care in the NHS is supposedly falling off a cliff.

I'd also suggest that graph isn't helping make that point though as it shows both specifics like starting salary for nurses and larger groups like all consultants or doctors.
But that's not the argument being made, it's that pay has been eroded. Whose pay though, will the people employed in the NHS in 2010 and still there now be paid more or less than they were in 2010 allowing for inflation.

The counter argument I guess is that this steps in salary are built in. You get them for time served whether you have any professional development or not. So maybe that's a reason quality of care is falling as you describe.

I get unions want as much for their members but the argument (either way) isn't as simple as one set of statistics.

I'm not sure what counts as starting salary but the lowest bands for nurses went up more than inflation in those 10 years.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by mumbles87 »

delbert wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 6:46 pm That sort of undermines the argument for unionisation in the private sector.........
Only if you look at just wages.

If a private company wanted to restructure the way network rail is thinking for example what exactly is there to stop them? Round of redundancy, restructure and off you go.

Change of working condition? Much easier without something working together to discuss the best way forward.

There is plenty of bad about unions which people throw about but there is so much more good they do.

They built a lot of what this country enjoys in employment law due to unions of the past

Some of the very much basic rights now we take for granted. Like weekends. Maternity pay, annual leave , sick pay

We only are seeing the kind of action of this summer because the gov is trying it's hardest to break down workers rights. Which is why these strikes have been much more supported than the last decade or so.
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by Prob »

The good news that the Elizabeth line moves into its next stage.

However, are they still going to run into Liverpool street mainline after all the work they did recently to the platforms and for a lot of people its a journey that suits many
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Re: TfL Bailout - sign of things to come?

Post by ironsonthebrain »

the pink palermo wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 10:24 am I think Mick Lynch has articulated very well one of the key reasons people join unions in lower numbers these days.

He spoke yesterday about the threshold Unions have to go through to get a legally mandated strike called.

The barrier is significantly higher than that which took the Nation out of the EU or that has elected any Government for decades in terms of turnout.

The Tories in particular have whittled away at Union powers to the point where any spurious strikes can be called is non existent.

For both Sunak and Truss to state they would go further is a worrying trend. Hopefully we shall see SKS in Downing St in a couple of years to roll out a legislative programme that rebalances the situation.
One thing that truly sickens me isn't so much that the Tories have continually brought in anti Trade Union legislation, it is that in 13 years in power neither Blair nor Brown repealed a single piece of it.
Should Starmer win the next election I would expect exactly the same.
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