Imagine if

Where do I sign up?

 

You have to buy Amazon Prime......

 

Interesting discussion.

The lock downs taught me a painful lesson. I feel much better having learned to accept it.

I have no right to be paid.

I can work as many hours as a like, but if there's no one to pay me, or there isn't any money to pay me, I won't be paid.

Some people were fortunate enough to get a furlough subsidy during the lock downs. These people effectively had a 20% pay cut. They were made to feel that they should be grateful for that.

Why? A lot of them wanted to go out and work just like their public sector counterparts. They weren't allowed to.

These people are still struggling to get over that significant financial hit. Some will never get over it and have lost everything.

And then there were some people that didn't qualify for a furlough subsidy. What about them? They couldn't on strike.

I guess the current pay disputes look a bit different if you consider them from a different perspective.

What I find most troubling about all the recent industrial action is that a lot of the people striking were on full pay, could work and were at no risk of financial turmoil.

I don't have a problem with people wanting to earn more money. My problem is the sense of entitlement and people having no idea (or care) where it comes from.

 

Regarding the current wave of strikes. The way I see it is that the RMT have made an error including train drivers in the current action. They should have said a lot of our workers, station staff, cleaners etc earn below average and then taken action to improve things. Plus I also believe they have a valid point about the removal of guards on trains. I think for safety they should be there. By including drivers on 70k it weakens their argument.

Re nurses. There simply isn’t enough of them. It seems to me that with a bit of experience a nurse can earn around 37k and specialist nurses over 40k. So the money isn’t bad but it is when they have to do the work of three people. It seems to me that the current crisis in nursing is one of under staffing not simply under paying.

I probably won’t be popular but I lay the blame partly on GP’s. They simply won’t modernise. They still won’t see patients face to face since covid unless you are already practically dead. They still class past five thirty as somehow out of hours. They won’t open at weekends. So what happens. People go to A&E instead cos they give up on seeing a GP. That puts massive additional pressures on the poor nurses who are working there. I was recently in Luton A&E and I can tell you the staff were exceptional but the place is like a war zone. We sat for 14hours in a corridor waiting for a bed so my wife could be admitted for her brain scans. Just too many people there who should be being dealt with somewhere else. Poor nurses were dead on their feet. All the GPs were at home watching strictly with a glass of expensive wine.

 

Train drivers have the safety of many hundreds of passengers in their hands for the duration of the work time - the same as airline pilots, who by the way, are similarly unionised. Its odd to me that people see pilots in a similar god like way to surgeons (who also get time away from their NHS employment to undetake private consultations for huge financial gain), some people still thank bus drivers when they get off. Coach drivers still get a whip around at the end of a day trip. But train drivers are militant trouble makers?

They've had to include train driversin the dispute as they are being pushed to accept driver only trains and compulsory Sunday work rotas - would you accept a flight on a plane where the pilot leaves the controls to deal with issues in the cabin or looks tired because he's been flying on his rest day?

I have similar memories of the L&D hospital as I worked there for a while, there is no doubt that the A&E dept miraculously manages to carry on functioning, but you have to look up the ladder to senior clinicians who have a lot of influence on how funding gets prioritised/distributed.

One of the first things the Coalition did in 2010 was to destroy Primary Care in the UK, that was where many of the overloading of hospitals used to be dealt with. Harrow had a 24/7 drop in health care facility, no appointments needed, with a whole range of health services also available.

Gone now.

 

Ffs really! Some people chose a vocation that supports society as a whole. Public sector workers such as nurses and paramedics work long hours and whilst that work may be “guaranteed” they invariably earn less than those doing the same work in the private sector under greater pressure and under poorer conditions. They are paid from central funds and therefore are the first and last victims of any political restraints on pay. So you think they had a great deal out of being able to work during the epidemic whilst others sat at home paid for by the state do you?


How far down the queue are you for being chucked out of the balloon. I shouldn’t worry too much as there are many in the balloon who won’t let that happen and would rather we all crashed together and dealt with the consequences together!

 

And btw. Everyone has the right to be paid assuming they do the work! People on strike don’t get paid!

 

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My point was that including train drivers in the salary negotiation weakens their argument, not the decision to run driver only trains which I think is frankly bonkers.

 

My point was the drivers want those extra requirements to be either removed or, probably after negotiation, get paid to accept.

Its like me offering to pay a plumber an extra 50% a week, all I want him to do in return is fit 50% more boilers a week.....


Currently this government sees negotiating as looking to legislate against train strikes, that would be criminalising people working for companies owned by equity investors and hedge funds.

How can that be right?

 

Basic economics might disagree with you on that.

Economic shutdown meant the money stopped flowing.

Here's a trivial example:

Mr Coffee Bean supplier sells beans to Mr Grinder. Mr Grinder sells them to Mr Coffee Maker. Mr Coffee Maker sells coffee to his customers.

Customer can't buy coffee. Mr Coffee Maker has no customers and stays at home. Mr Coffee Grinder grinds to a halt. Mr Coffee bean counts his beans.

If the money stops flowing, you can work as many hours as you like, you won't get paid.

I have no problem with people striking. If they feel that strongly about it, good on them.

Demanding an increase that's approaching 20%?! I can't see many people are going to have much sympathy for that.

If it were that easy then everyone should get a 20% increase and we'd all be fine.

Oh hang on, maybe that's part of the problem?

A brief mention for the "people that chose a vocation that supports society as a whole". I am grateful that they do what they do. Their terms of employment offer them protections that a lot of people do not get. I am not for one moment suggesting that they don't deserve to be well paid. They should be. However, in the current economic climate, pay restraint is needed.

 

In that example, no one is actually working, that's why they aren't getting paid.

You previously referred to furloughed employees taking a 20% paycut, but the furlough scheme explicitly forbid furloughed people from working, so they were actually getting an 80% allowance not to work. Or to work stealthily, or to sit in the garden, etc etc.

 

I can see what your looking to explain and there’s an element of truth but genuinely if there’s an agreement for work to be undertaken at an agreed rate and the work or product is delivered as agreed then there is no legal right not to pay. Circumstances and costs may introduce some element of further negotiation around the actual payment.

I personally spent a number of years working in production where we were paid by output ie productivity. We worked hard, as a team… no slacking. There were occasions when our employer couldn’t pay us and we worked for nothing. We didn’t have to but it was in our interests to keep the company going. It was our choice. That happens a few times and those that can leave do so! Needless to say the business was only going in one direction and the company went bump overnight. We were last on the list of creditors to be paid so statutory redundancy payments kicked in ( paid by the state). I’ve been in that situation a few times in my working life and at times when I was struggling to pay my own bills.
Oddly the bosses always seemed to come out of it ok.

 

The people in the example didn't qualify for furlough. The still had rent, insurance and energy bills to pay. They were fortunate if their businesses survived.

Personally I don't know anyone who was in receipt of furlough that were happy with the 20% hit and the uncertainty of a lack of a job at the end of it. They just weren't given the choice.

In the lock downs AND the current economic climate, no one with a mortgage to pay is wanting to sit around if they don't have to.

The economy is sick. Loads of organisations are still struggling with the fallout of the pandemic and now have rampant inflation to deal with.

Some of the strikers pay demands just seem to me to be outrageous given where we've been the last few years and the current economic state of play.

 

I had staff come to see me to request to be furloughed. Some through fear. Others through seeing the benefit of sitting at home on effectively full pay once the effects of less tax and NI were applied. I had to lose half the staff so it was helpful I didn’t have to force anyone. The others who remained at work ended up on 100% salary for doing a 50% rota so they weren’t too unhappy. I know of a few tradesmen who did work illegally during covid and coined it in. 80% salary plus a full wage working on sites. That’s their call and it may or may not catch up with them.

 

We’re not going to agree on this at all as perspectives and experiences are different. Incidentally there was help for those struggling with mortgages. Business owning and self employed then unfortunately that’s the way it is. It’s not the fault of the public sector workers. To say they benefitted from covid is a bit of a pee take though. They still got the poor wages then as they still do now. It’s about choice isn’t it. You chose your job and sector if you’ve anything about you. I’ve had years of watching those around me get the company cars, the big houses, the foreign holidays , the bonuses and then bang… it goes a bit pear shaped and it’s my fault and the fault of those with “gold plated pensions” ( surprised that’s not been mentioned).

 

I know plenty of people who welcomed furlough, esprcially those saving the lost 20% by not having work travel costs, but obviously the further down the pay scale you go, the more impact losing 20% will have.

It's no coincidence that there was a surge in online purchases of DIY, garden furniture, sunhouses etc, so for some the 20% was not missed at all.

As an aside, I think it was a sign of the times that the figure was set at 80%, payment - presumably the other 20% was the level of disposable income that the government decided could be absorbed by the public?

Was there any expectation that people should have a degree of self reliance to 'save for a rainy day', Covid being a particularly rainy day....instead of maxing out on credit just to sustain consumerism as we now know it?

I don't think our economy could survive without credit overloading, even before Covid and certainly after it.

 

I’m on strike over the Christmas week, when the big engineering projects get completed, I’d rather be working tbh and have done the last 9 years.

The pay dispute is just the headline grabber, there are proposed changes to reduce safety/maintenance schedules by 50% through reducing team sizes, reducing weekly hours with corresponding pay cut, changes to pensions and significant changes to rostering.

A draft roster sent to our union rep had us working to be more flexible around the railway working week (for engineering this is generally 4-5 consecutive shifts between Saturday-Thursday)
The proposal would have us working Saturday night, rest day Sunday (whilst in bed), then working Monday- Thursday nights - rest day Friday (spent in bed). So no 2 rest days off together, a shocking proposal dreamt up by someone probably working from home who’s never worked nights. Any takers for less work/home life balance?

Every cloud has a silver lining though, I’m in Thailand and have just extended my holiday until the new year, I’ll be striking from here

 

Life is what you make it @Dicky as you say everyones experiences are different. I was one of those lucky self employed workers who entered the pandemic doing my own thing and a bit of part time employed work in essential retail. Got nothing by way of support not a penny, pandemic changed the sector I work in and closed down my own business. Now back working as a full time employee, doing exactly what I was 20 years ago, dealt with worse Marmite in my nearly 60 years, so like you say its all down to your own choice and a bit of luck.
BTW Happy Christmas have a good one.

 

You too chap. I agree it’s been difficult for many of us in different ways. We get by eventually but it’s time to sort out the issues and not kick em down the road. Up to my armpits in covid just now (whilst on holiday too) but hoping for a Christmas reprieve. Didn’t realise you were a spritely 50something still! Whippersnapper! Have a great one! Hope Santa brings you something nice.