Tube strike is about maintaining good service. Don’t let selfish people tell you it’s about selfishness
The London Underground is in a mess due to cut by the Conservative Government and poor management by Boris Johnson Conservative administration.
Sadiq Khan, the current (Labour, he says) Mayor of London appeared on Radio 4, to oppose the strike, but is arguments do not ring true.
His administration may be working to limit the damage but the service is suffering now, and changes imposed by Johnson and the Tories may be hard to reverse.
The strike was called because of ticket office closures and the loss of 800 staff members under Mr Johnson. Mr Khan could only say 200 jobs had been restored, and his comments about ticket offices were limited to saying he had accepted the findings of a review by Travel Watch. He did not say what those findings were.
Meanwhile, Tube staff are striking because the service is not safe. They say the cuts, along with “brutal” unilaterally-imposed changes to working practices that have been imposed by Transport for London (TfL) have led to “a further exodus of staff from the service”.
That is their right; anybody can walk away from a contract if the other side imposes unfair conditions.
And it doesn’t take genius to work out that they are right to do so.
The level of support for the strike among those who remain – only 10 stations are open, it has been reported – is evidence of this.
The Tube system needs restoration now – not talk about doing it tomorrow (maybe).
Claims that the strike is causing misery for a day show a lack of understanding that the aim is to prevent misery on a regular – or indeed permanent – basis.
They are the claims of the selfish, the narrow-minded, and the ignorant.
They are on strike to ensure stations do not have to close due to lack of staff and that 1m more people can travel comfortably on the tube
— Rhea Wolfson (@rheawolfson) January 9, 2017
Some critics are even claiming that Tube workers have decent, well-paid jobs and should not, therefore, be striking.
The only reason any employee has a decent, well-paid job, is union action – including strikes. And in this case it is clear that striking remains the only way to protect pay and conditions that the Conservative Party has tried to erode.
It’s time some of the people catching a bus today also got a clue.
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Sadiq Khan just another blairite who really should cross the floor
Anybody who thinks that they have a right to determine how another employee should behave, in another company, who is in dispute with their employer needs a slap! I am utterly fed of people saying that other people should not be allowed to strike. Since when were we slaves? Since when was it legal to force somebody to work? Since when is it okay for harmful opinions to be published, of those who know nothing about an industrial dispute, about said dispute? I have long said that it should be illegal for media reporting on the details of an industrial dispute, while is remains unresolved, because it prejudices the employees. How is it that, whenever there is an industrial dispute reported in the media, the bias is always against the employees? Why are the employers never seen as the bad guys? We often hear words like blackmail and ransom; these are not helpful terms. Nobody is being held to ransom. We have a muti-faceted transport system; nobody is forced to use any particular mode of transport. The employees are in dispute with their employers, it is not a slight against “hard working people” like those who strike do not work hard. If the precious economy is so damaged by strike action, why is there not government intervention to prevent it? Who WANTS to strike? Honestly, some people are exactly what our new politics have produced; nasty, selfish, judgmental, unsympathetic, callous…