What does it take to satisfy the tube drivers?

[merehazle]

Any ideas?    

More Tube strikes are set to take place due to (yet another) pay dispute. Drivers' union Aslef also take issue for all-night service. Take issue? How much longer? Forever maybe?

They called for Transport for London to start new talks. Or would that be talks on how not to negotiate?

It is true we don't see the very much lower paid bus drivers, going on strike due to the extra work (and very much harder work IMO) that the tube drivers are creating for them. 

Their Christmas strikes must not be forgotten.  Such a pleasant gift to their wage payer's. Yes, they held us to ransom. What else was it?  If they think this will not hasten ''full automation'' watch and see. Some people have had enough. 

[al**bear]

It is Transport for London under orders from Government who muck up the talks all the time

[merehazle]

---

@al**bear wrote:

It is Transport for London under orders from Government who muck up the talks all the time

---

Are you sure? It's difficult to be sure about anything with this lot I know. But have you any details?

 Like most Londoners I'm sure it has quite a lot to do with the drivers. We have been assured of that for some years now.

I think it is fair to draw up some comparisons from what we know:

A Registered Staff Nurse (RN) earns (and don't they half) an average salary  of £23,000 per year.

A Tube driver more than double that. Google 'tube drivers pay' if you wish to see their other working details.

Yes, the nurses (at the moment) have to accept that.  They have power too.  But you don't hear them year after year asking for more.  

BTW a bus driver is also paid about half that of a tube driver.  

[fallen-archie]

Here are some figures from the Telegraph

How much a newly-qualified tube driver makes per hour, compared to other careers

Career Teacher Firefighter Nurse Policeman Tube driver

£/hr worked

7.6

9.66

11.12

11.2

26.53

As this chart shows, a newly-qualified tube driver gets £26.53 per hour worked, while a nurse or policeman would start on around £11 per hour for working 37 and 40 hours a week respectively. A firefighter would make much less, at just £9.66 an hour, while teachers do much worse. A secondary school teacher makes just £7.60 for every one of the 55.7 hours a week they can expect to work.

Tube drivers' union leaders may dress up their concerns with talk of "flexible working" and "antisocial hours", but the figures show they are well paid for their work.

They do have to contend with the suicidal and a very dull environment but come on that looks a reasonable reward to me.

[merehazle]

---

@fallen-archie wrote:

Here are some figures from the Telegraph

How much a newly-qualified tube driver makes per hour, compared to other careers

Career Teacher Firefighter Nurse Policeman Tube driver

£/hr worked

7.6

9.66

11.12

11.2

26.53

As this chart shows, a newly-qualified tube driver gets £26.53 per hour worked, while a nurse or policeman would start on around £11 per hour for working 37 and 40 hours a week respectively. A firefighter would make much less, at just £9.66 an hour, while teachers do much worse. A secondary school teacher makes just £7.60 for every one of the 55.7 hours a week they can expect to work.

Tube drivers' union leaders may dress up their concerns with talk of "flexible working" and "antisocial hours", but the figures show they are well paid for their work.

They do have to contend with the suicidal and a very dull environment but come on that looks a reasonable reward to me.

---

Yes. Thank you.  Of course they knew that before they took the job. So did my uncle who worked the old steam engines,

mostly open to the most severest of weather.  They contended with that awful environment, and back breaking work too. Suicide by passengers was quite common then. Over decades he says strikes were never heard of. Certainly not at Christmas.

If I remember rightly this lot had their damn strike on two Christmases? And were they not striking in the deepest part of the recession? I will look it up and get back tomorrow. Unless someone knows?

These tube drivers are digging their own grave, as they are making automation more viable. They will go the same way as the dockers, miners, and the old car workers, all of whom out priced themselves by taking advantage of their union power.

I remember them striking for a bonus whilst the Olympics were on. That was following claims of extra work load due to the anticipated rise in visitors. We now know many people stayed away as came, but I have not heard of anyone offering to refund their bonus, or the unions collecting same and repaying it. Their greed WILL hasten their demise.  

[joe_bloggs*]

"These tube drivers are digging their own grave, as they are making automation more viable"

Like the Docklands Light Railway you mean?

Normally, any strike disrupting rail transport services is in London is accompanied by calls for “driverless trains”. These vehicles, it is proclaimed, would end the power of the beastly unions to bring the capital to a halt. Boris Johnson himself has given credence to this belief when wanting to look tough in the face of stoppages on the Tube or when in need of votes. Often, champions of the “driverless” solution cite the Docklands Light Railway (DLR)

"This argument has always been deeply flawed and recent events on the DLR prove it. A 48-hour strike held earlier this week closed the entire system.....

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2015/nov/05/docklands-light-railway-strike-explodes-...

The strike a few months ago was even more disruptive than the tube strike, because guess what is needed to run the automation?

Yes, unionised employees

[cee-dee]

Many years ago in the car factory where I worked there was a pay offer on the table but the union reps were pressing management for more and one of the company reps said "You're pricing yourselves out of a job, we're going to automate you".

The early automation had already arived but it was electro mechanical and shortly after that, the first electronic/pneumatic machines arrived, crude by todays standards. But now, just look at the automation in the car industry?  BTW, that factory is still producing cars.

Strikes always cost the worker money and it takes ages if ever to recover what's lost.

Strikes are mostly motivated by agitators who "hate" the company and union officials trying to make a name for themselves.There's little regard for either the company or the customer and underneath, those agitating have little real regard for those they claim to be safeguarding their best interests.

[upthecreekyetagain]

The argument that automation is driven by a rise in labour costs is flawed. 

Industry is constantly looking to automate whether it is based in the West with high labour costs or in developing nations with a low or very low cost labour force.

[cee-dee]

Up to a point you're right but machines don't take tea breaks, take a newspaper down to the toilets or spend ages talking to their mate(s) about football/last night out/wife/kids all paid for by the company.

[upthecreekyetagain]

Not denying that all that you list happens but they happen whether the workforce is highly paid or not.

[upthecreekyetagain]

I wonder how easy it will be to automate the job the Junior Doctors do?

[cee-dee]

Difficult but...................

A funny episode early one morning last September, the consultant arrives at a bedside with a following of junior doctors. After a few minutes, another arrives. The consultant looks him in the eye and says "Evening". The late arrival looked down and said nothing.

[merehazle]

---

@joe_bloggs* wrote:

"These tube drivers are digging their own grave, as they are making automation more viable"

Like the Docklands Light Railway you mean?

Normally, any strike disrupting rail transport services is in London is accompanied by calls for “driverless trains”. These vehicles, it is proclaimed, would end the power of the beastly unions to bring the capital to a halt. Boris Johnson himself has given credence to this belief when wanting to look tough in the face of stoppages on the Tube or when in need of votes. Often, champions of the “driverless” solution cite the Docklands Light Railway (DLR)

"This argument has always been deeply flawed and recent events on the DLR prove it. A 48-hour strike held earlier this week closed the entire system.....

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2015/nov/05/docklands-light-railway-strike-explodes-...

The strike a few months ago was even more disruptive than the tube strike, because guess what is needed to run the automation?

Yes, unionised employees

---

'Like the Docklands Light Railway you mean'.  I mean? ... NO. You, said that.

I think it's always wiser not to guess what someone else means. 

What happened their is obviously not the way to satisfy the tube drivers. My thread is ''specifically'' about the tube drivers and their seemingly endless strikes.   As I said any ideas?     Not about how it wont work.    But how it might work? 

If you have a skill that no one else can do? Under the free market doctrine you have every right to withhold it and bleed as much money as you can out of those that need it. In this case we have that skill its called ''automation''. 

See ''attachment'' we all have to guess what he means.  al**bear, #2, had something to say about that.  

[upthecreekyetagain]

'Driverless' trains for the Underground are already being developed so discussion as to how automation might work is redundant - that has already been decided.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11150671/New-driverless-tube-trains-u...

It also makes the claim that drivers are 'pricing' themselves out of a job irrelevant.