How greedy can you get. London Underground train drivers are on strike today because they want triple pay and a day off in lieu for working on Boxing Day. Aslef members chose to strike today to deliberately disrupt Boxing
Day outings in the city, to maximise misery for commuters and devastate our crippling economy even more knowing it will keep shoppers away from the sales.
A restricted service will still be provided as London Underground says it intends to run as many tube services as possible still, as well 700 bus routes and some river services (I always think the river could be used more for public transport).
My son worked yesterday in the kitchen of a hotel and was paid double time with tips; he didn’t complain. I’ve worked Christmas Day as a journalist (as an NUJ member) and was paid double time too for putting in those festive hours.
With today’s crippling jobs shortage, I’m sure there are plenty of other drivers who would gladly step into the shoes of those drivers who expect their railway tracks to be paved with gold…
Yes Ellee .. PURE GREED… They are thousands of other people who work Christmas day , Nurses, Firemen, The Forces , Police, On call duty doctors … I am so fed up with this country and the greediness. I agree that there are people in this country who would love a job .. and pay for their families.
It is a Sunday and It is Boxing day .. Why are the shops open .. why are people going out shopping , where are they getting their money from ?? We should be shut, and to give people time with their families … We live in a very very greedy country and society.
They already get 43 days holiday for heavens sake! So greedy and selfish.
I’m an ASLEF representative on the Great Western region. Last year I worked six hours of Christmas day for time and a quarter, which is our agreed rate – unfortunately I was rostered to work on the crucial (and frenetic) shed turn which means that the trains are fueled and safety checked for the mass return to work after the festivities. We have an arrangement whereby most drivers will get Christmas day and Boxing day off but they are deducted two annual leave days to do it. They offered time and three quarters to get drivers in this year. That we are lazy and get the Christmas break off is a myth perpetuated by the Tory press. We get two days off and work the rest.
There seems to be a push to get key workers working as normal over the festivities. From shop workers (for whom I have particular sympathy) to pub landlords and restaurant staff the expectation is that everyone else should be out there grafting. Why ? And why can’t people who – in general, and unlike us – have a week off over Christmas get to their destinations without having to travel on these key days ? It seems to me that it’s not just drivers who are being greedy. But let’s analyse that:
In all honesty there is no money that would get me in over the Christmas period voluntarily. Life is not all about money after all. In my case it is about family as you would expect and want it to be, Ellee. Honouring a contractual agreement yes – I do my duty without grumble. But to sacrifice Christmas to make a few bucks that will be forgotten soon enough ? No. To vote for it to become part of our contract I would settle for double time and a day off – as it is in the police – this is not in anyway compensatory for the lost family time but I recognise the pressures on our company and at least this sum would show some respect for what I’m giving up. The key point here is that – unlike a London Underground driver I’m not having to pay supertax on it.
Tube drivers are on fifty to sixty thousand pounds a year dependant on the driver’s seniority. Before you fall to the floor in astonishment allow me to explain why I’m not there earning it. A thirty year-old driver with a young family will be lucky to afford a grotty flat or terrace in a rough area of London on this money. A very poor standard of living and his kids will have to go to a dodgy school. The average salary in the City is now £50k which sounds a lot, but I simply could not afford to move back to London on this wage and maintain anything like the standard of living I have now earning much less. So, because of overcrowding and the crazy housing market, we have a situation where ordinary people are having to earn higher tax wages (and bosses are having to pay it – or else they wouldn’t) and the benefit of double time and a day off is diminished as the government rakes off over 50% of it.
I have a better idea to sort this all out. Let’s ban Christmas altogether for all but the church goers (and I mean regular service goers) The period has become an obscene celebration of consumerism in our largely secular country against all Christian sentiment and driven by an expectation of cheap – factory farmed – turkey and 24 hour services provided by people on wages which go nowhere near compensating for the family time lost to true Christians.
My days off per year 28 btw.
Still wouldn’t go back to London though.
Whatever next! There’ll be priests and vicars claiming overtime for working on Christmas Day before long 😉
Further to all that …
I have it from a good source that TFL drivers are salaried at £42k pa. I got the £50-£60k from a Daily Mail article.
We should fire them that striker. Many would gladly work for what they get
Yes, we’re a greedy country and you can thank your own Tory Party and Mrs Thatcher in particular for that. There is no such thing as society and it’s everyone for themselves. What the hell kind of a society did you expect we’d be living in today?
Good luck to them and thanks to electro-kevin for filling in between the lines of the knee-jerk Daily Mail version given above.
Happy to oblige, Steve Wilson.
I have further information. Bank holidays were run to a Sunday timetable when the tube drivers accepted their settlement with TFL. After this was agreed a Saturday timetable was implemented with all sorts of ramifications.
The company I worked for previously managed to buy off all bank holidays from staff – whatever wage increases were achieved were soon eaten away with inflation. They used to run courses on bank holidays deliberately to catch staff who weren’t needed to work operationally on those days.
There are other problems which have arisen owing to our willingness to accept conditions that we shouldn’t have – I can’t discuss these here but we’re trying to put them right in a measured way, internally and amicably. Rest assured that the maxim ‘give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile’ applies equally to management as it does workers and I don’t blame Aslef (a moderate union with low levels of strike action) one bit for making a stand in London. The problem with the underground is that it’s the most suitable for automation. Out on the mainline this is a much less likely prospect.
Overtime might well become a thing of the past soon anyway.
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WOW! I am absolutely stunned at the greed and then the comment electro-kevin made about banning christmas all together except for church goers.
Love your blog man keep up the good work
Quite
I am stunned by their Greed. Just sack the lot of them !¬
A year later and I can’t believe that we’re going through the whole process again! I’m not surprised that these drivers don’t want to work on Bank Holidays, I mean it’s not like they need the money, when their basic salary is already 42K is it?? Actually, that was 2010, I’m sure they’ve had a big pay rise since then! These people hold all Londoners to ransom at every opportunity. Tax payers are already having to stump up a massive bonus just so they will agree not to strike during the Olympics! Are the rest of us getting a bonus for working during the Olympics?? Do the rest of us get triple pay + a day in lieu for working on Bank Holidays?? No!! But we still have to get to work somehow while they’re on strike, don’t we? I for one am looking forward to the day when the whole of the tube network is automated, like the DLR is now!