Strikes are set to disrupt the Underground network until Friday, with the RMT telling London Centric further action could be on the cards. But is the impact being blunted by new forms of transport?
Standard tube driver base salary of £65,179/year. Overtime of £44.62 = £70-£80,000 take home. Defined benefit final salary pension which for a standard driver with 30 years service = £32,500/year. Plus free travel. All this for a job that can be and is automated across the world. And they want more! I don’t know anyone who gets a pension remotely similar to that, and the only people on a similar salary are in the city slogging through 60+ hour weeks. TfL is a non profit and staff costs account for about 2/3 of its total costs. I hope anyone bored enough wfh to read this appreciates that you can’t simultaneously support the RMT whilst complaining about extortionate tube fares - which are amongst the highest globally.
You make a great case for the benefits of trade unionism YS! if only more people in more workplaces had people fighting for them to have a decent wage and good conditions
Most jobs/workers simply can't use strikes to better pay & conditions like tube/rail staff! If a restaurant company's staff walk out, a few random restaurants close, they can't hope to shut down the entire restaurant system.
I make no pretence of doing so. I clearly specify ‘driver’. I do that because they are the ones whose jobs are automated in every normal and productive country.
I specify driver because I only care about drivers. I am not complaining anywhere about anyone else striking. List of cities with driverless tube/metro systems: Singapore, Shanghai, Dubai, Delhi, Chennai (ordered) Copenhagen, Lille, Marseille, Budapest, Paris, Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Rome, Rennes, Lausanne, Vancouver, Montreal (soon) New York (JFK AirTrain), Kuala Lumpur, Riyadh, Beijing, Doha, Abidjan. Singapore is touching 200km. I’ve read the original TfL report. Major issue is they haven’t got the capital to invest in automation. Wonder why that is. The other is RMT and ASLEF would never in a squillion years allow it. Anytime it’s mentioned they scream ‘safety’ just as bell boys did about automatic elevators
Out of those on your list, Paris is the only one to have converted a manual line to automated. The rest are individual new-build lines/entire systems automated from launch.
It's costly indeed, and given the choice, I think central government would prefer to invest that elsewhere (or nowhere else at all).
About the extortionate tube fares -- down to a low level of government subsidy more than anything. The pie charts are a little old now but the ones that were in the media during the pandemic comparing farebox reliance between different comparable systems showed that the tube was far more reliant than any other system. The other option is property development (Hong Kong -- TfL has made a start there, but nowhere near where it needs to be.)
As a regular commuter by bike (10miles from east London to TCR) I found the roads truly were chaos this morning. It seemed lots of people had dug their bikes out of their sheds for the first time in years, or were wrangling a Lime Bike for the first time. I saw four near bike-on-bike collisions in the last ten minutes of my journey, and the number of fellow cyclists skipping redlights seemed way more than usual.
There's a thing I called the "Lime bike wobble" which is that moment where someone not used to riding them tries pull away from a red light, steps on a pedal, and the weight causes the front wheel to start to jackknife. Anyway, definitely a lot of exciting moments with a couple of dozen people doing that together this morning.
Ah once again I see mention of the "Privilege ticket" concession. Family spouses and dependents got this way back when my dad worked for the old British Rail . Family like me only paid or got a third (or quarter?) off if I recall by showing a card at the ticket office. But back then full price tickets didn't seem so proportionately high as today. It was a nice perk while you had it.
I don't know what the family discount aspect would add to the overall bill in addition to a universal free travel concession for transport workers.
Feels very selfish ruining so many peoples' plans and forcing hardship upon small businesses without reasonable cause. I strongly support workers rights, but it's impossible for 99% of workers to use strikes to achieve better pay like this. If say a retail company's workers strike then a few shops close, it's only a few select jobs like tube/train staff in the sweet spot of being able to shut down important, but not life-critical, entire systems.
Abusing that quirk is unfair and in no way helps workers generally.
Westminster was absolute carnage with bikes at rush hour yesterday - lanes were packed and the traffic lights too slow to work with the increased number (one lane hadn’t stopped crossing by the time the other lane turned green). reminder that london isn’t a true cycling city yet
I experienced this as well while cycling through but… “not everyone being able to cross in one go” is something that all other vehicles are used to. It’s just we’re only just getting to the point of “bike congestion” being a real problem!
Standard tube driver base salary of £65,179/year. Overtime of £44.62 = £70-£80,000 take home. Defined benefit final salary pension which for a standard driver with 30 years service = £32,500/year. Plus free travel. All this for a job that can be and is automated across the world. And they want more! I don’t know anyone who gets a pension remotely similar to that, and the only people on a similar salary are in the city slogging through 60+ hour weeks. TfL is a non profit and staff costs account for about 2/3 of its total costs. I hope anyone bored enough wfh to read this appreciates that you can’t simultaneously support the RMT whilst complaining about extortionate tube fares - which are amongst the highest globally.
You make a great case for the benefits of trade unionism YS! if only more people in more workplaces had people fighting for them to have a decent wage and good conditions
Most jobs/workers simply can't use strikes to better pay & conditions like tube/rail staff! If a restaurant company's staff walk out, a few random restaurants close, they can't hope to shut down the entire restaurant system.
How much do you think they should be paid? You’re paying for it at the end of the day - assuming you aren’t lucky enough to wfh or cycle/walk
Crabs in a bucket
This ignores the thousands of station and depot staff who are not paid nearly the same amount of money.
I make no pretence of doing so. I clearly specify ‘driver’. I do that because they are the ones whose jobs are automated in every normal and productive country.
You specify driver as if the strike is only about drivers. It is not. Driverless train systems are very much in the minority worldwide, and even TfL considers it infeasible: https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/tfl-abandons-plans-for-driverless-tube-trains-77435/
I specify driver because I only care about drivers. I am not complaining anywhere about anyone else striking. List of cities with driverless tube/metro systems: Singapore, Shanghai, Dubai, Delhi, Chennai (ordered) Copenhagen, Lille, Marseille, Budapest, Paris, Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Rome, Rennes, Lausanne, Vancouver, Montreal (soon) New York (JFK AirTrain), Kuala Lumpur, Riyadh, Beijing, Doha, Abidjan. Singapore is touching 200km. I’ve read the original TfL report. Major issue is they haven’t got the capital to invest in automation. Wonder why that is. The other is RMT and ASLEF would never in a squillion years allow it. Anytime it’s mentioned they scream ‘safety’ just as bell boys did about automatic elevators
Out of those on your list, Paris is the only one to have converted a manual line to automated. The rest are individual new-build lines/entire systems automated from launch.
It's costly indeed, and given the choice, I think central government would prefer to invest that elsewhere (or nowhere else at all).
About the extortionate tube fares -- down to a low level of government subsidy more than anything. The pie charts are a little old now but the ones that were in the media during the pandemic comparing farebox reliance between different comparable systems showed that the tube was far more reliant than any other system. The other option is property development (Hong Kong -- TfL has made a start there, but nowhere near where it needs to be.)
As a regular commuter by bike (10miles from east London to TCR) I found the roads truly were chaos this morning. It seemed lots of people had dug their bikes out of their sheds for the first time in years, or were wrangling a Lime Bike for the first time. I saw four near bike-on-bike collisions in the last ten minutes of my journey, and the number of fellow cyclists skipping redlights seemed way more than usual.
There's a thing I called the "Lime bike wobble" which is that moment where someone not used to riding them tries pull away from a red light, steps on a pedal, and the weight causes the front wheel to start to jackknife. Anyway, definitely a lot of exciting moments with a couple of dozen people doing that together this morning.
Sounds like the name of a dance at a school disco!
Hopefully everyone will have mastered it by the end of the week and the ride in gets a bit smoother for everyone!
Definitely more dangerous on the roads today with a bike... I'm going extra slow, and alert.
But this can only be a good thing. More people trying bikes. Some of whom will stick to it permanently.
If more people cycle, we'll get more dedicated cycle lanes across the city. That is the dream.
I have to say I'm a little sceptical about the 32 hours. Is it just a way for workers to earn more through overtime?
Ah once again I see mention of the "Privilege ticket" concession. Family spouses and dependents got this way back when my dad worked for the old British Rail . Family like me only paid or got a third (or quarter?) off if I recall by showing a card at the ticket office. But back then full price tickets didn't seem so proportionately high as today. It was a nice perk while you had it.
I don't know what the family discount aspect would add to the overall bill in addition to a universal free travel concession for transport workers.
Feels very selfish ruining so many peoples' plans and forcing hardship upon small businesses without reasonable cause. I strongly support workers rights, but it's impossible for 99% of workers to use strikes to achieve better pay like this. If say a retail company's workers strike then a few shops close, it's only a few select jobs like tube/train staff in the sweet spot of being able to shut down important, but not life-critical, entire systems.
Abusing that quirk is unfair and in no way helps workers generally.
Westminster was absolute carnage with bikes at rush hour yesterday - lanes were packed and the traffic lights too slow to work with the increased number (one lane hadn’t stopped crossing by the time the other lane turned green). reminder that london isn’t a true cycling city yet
I experienced this as well while cycling through but… “not everyone being able to cross in one go” is something that all other vehicles are used to. It’s just we’re only just getting to the point of “bike congestion” being a real problem!