Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/10 ... 91792.html



Is it very skilled work, then? Feels like a lot of money to me.

Old Man Afterthought used to drive a tube train. I'll ask him. That £50,000 probably has overtime rates in it, maybe? I dunno.

Good job the public 100% support them whenever they strike though, otherwise striking would just seem petty and political...

Fucking hell, where do I apply.

Bloody Hell.

Jesus Christ.

Those are % salary increases to make a banker weep!

Don't forget the pensions!

Can someone convince why I shouldn't apply to be one?

Not at all, from what I've heard.
But it's not exactly been from reliable sources.

What I do recall, though, is that when the magic system that automatically stopped the train for them stopped working, it required two of them to be in the cab for "safety reasons" suggesting that using the brakes in a form of transport pretty much limited to "speed up" and "slow down" was something they're not used to.

Thinking on, if it is complicated then something is wrong with the system used, because the list of things the trains need to be able to do is limited to about five (go, stop, recognise red lights, recognise green lights, open doors for a certain amount of time).

There was a documentary series about Tube train drivers on a few years ago, I seem to recall.

It isn't complicated, they aren't even required. the trains run themselves (or are capable of being upgraded to do so) and they are only there as the public fear change.

Excellent.

Is that why they have to use those Oyster cards?

I'm fairly sure the public is itching for them to go, but the unions think otherwise.

We just need Otto then.

I remain confused as to why they can't just sack the fuckers and re-employ a load of those people desperate for work who would consider a mere £30k to sit in a largely automated cab a totally fair amount of pay.

As I said before, the purpose of unions is no longer to maintain the basic rights of workers. Thesedays its more about collective fucking blackmail to get over-the-odds bullshit like this.

I'll wait for Perkies to review it

Love it!

That really is a lot of money for stopping and going all day.

I'd wager that Hackey cabbies don't earn anywhere near as much as that, despite presumably having to remember a metric fuck-ton more stuff to actually do their job.

Friend of mine has been a conductor for 20 years and has watched it get automated to the point where it's two buttons . Everything is so connected that if those buttons fail then it's very unlikely that they would be able to go to any back up manual controls meaning they get fixed while they are stuck or pushed out by an older tube train. The other driver is there so that the first driver has someone to talk to about sport.

Tube drivers paid quite a bit. Their union fights tooth and nail and is organised as all hell.

Coincidence?

Remember, unions are baaad for the ordinary worker. Or so we keep getting told.

I think this has been covered before but that's pretty much what happened with the (admittedly simpler) Glasgow underground.

Do we? Unions (like that one) are bad for business and consumers, I thought.

Yes. Remember how much easier it is when everyone has to organise their own pay and conditions?

Tube drivers on 50k a year are a million miles away from ordinary workers!

The transport union effectively just run an extortion racket, but I imagine it won't last a great deal longer on the tubes.

That's what I have always done. Worked out fine for me...

It depends on who is paying the wages, in the case of tube drivers it comes from transport for London which is a government thing. I have a problem with them getting paid more than MPs. (MP's government pay is actually surprisingly low).
Train drivers on the other hand are paid by private companies and I have no problem with them shafting management for all they are worth provided the ticket prices do not rise because of this. Bob and Big Dave should get enough money to pay for a mortgage on a nice house and some extra to send the kids to uni if Tarquin is allowed to have another new BMW.

What world are you living in today, exactly?

I quite like people not thinking I'm a selfish workshy cunt, to be honest.

I'm a contractor. Or consultant, depending. So apparently I'm all types of selfish, workshy cut.

How's that working out for you?

I don't mind people who know I'm a selfish workshy cunt thinking that - it's people I've never met before I'm talking about

A perfect one where people share out company profits evenly.

I thought you were a Tory, not a Commie?

Last year I went to a VMware show in Copenhagen, as part of the ticket price we were given a 3 day travel pass. I was staying on the outskirts as the hotel was cheap and we could walk to the venue each day

The tubes they had there had no drivers that I could see and where the London tubes have a driver there was a big window.

London is so overcrowded and the tube so vital to people getting around that they will pay almost anything to keep it running.

The cost will be recouped by putting the ticket price up. Not sure they could automate it though as I don’t think that have spent much money on it since 1890

The London underground once housed the wirld's only spiral escalator.

The VAL system from Lille , toulouse and many french cities will solve this...

No one came here for a lesson on Capitalism Communism Deccas' curious politics

London already has an automated railway in the DLR, and I don't think there are any real technology issues in automating the tube. Good luck getting rid of the drivers though - and making hundreds of people jobless right now is hardly a great idea.

Did it? Where?

There's one near Caesar's Palace in Vegas. I went up and down it loads, because it's awesome.

I'll try to remember/look it up tomorrow. I read about it few years back, so need to think very hard as my memory is failing (as I was told yesterday of something that happened to me that I have little recollection of).

Holloway Riad.

Whay are you peusting in a porsh vice?

I'm not saying i'm promoting the idea, but it's capitalism isn't , if the cost of labour rise, the quest for alternative will occur, and since they can hardly outsource the tube to india, in time they will automate more of it...

It's not like there isn't a demand for these jobs either. Most people can drive, and I'm sure at a cost of less than £20,000 could train me to do the driving, and then pay me more than £20,000 less than the current wasters for a long time.

Why is a pay rise at the rate of inflation, then based on a small increment over inflation until 2015 excessive exactly? I can accept arguments that the starting point of their pay is a possibly high for what they're doing (excepting the LOL THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO STEER stupidity) but just because this new deal takes them over a special number, it's suddenly unfair to everyone else and extortion.

As for the herp derp sack them all brigade, do you think a government that sacked the entire tube network's drivers would survive long with the capital paralysed? How long and how much do you think it would cost to train replacements? Maybe they could train them all in secret, because I'm sure nobody would find out about that and provoke legal action and mass RMT strikes.

It may be that eventually the whole creaking lot of it is shiny and automated, but until them you need the few hundred people who know how to operate it all.

Lol they don't even have to steer!

Or brake! The kids on the battery powered plastic motorbikes have more control.