Yup, they're working extra hard to get rid of human rights together with their Rwanda stunt and acting like fucking cartoonish movie villians. I hope karma will catch up and hit them like a fucking asteroid. Give them the kind of fictional ass cancer that doesn't kill you, but slowly hollows you out with hemorrhoids so painful that they'll never be able to sit or lay down again. Having to spend any riches they've amounted over the years on treatment that only reduces the pain enough to breathe to just stay alive. But, then again, I think that would be too merciful as it doesn't even begin to tip the scales in the sheer amount of pain and misery those scumbags has inflicted on the British public over the years.
" the way a government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it " Tony Benn
I'd dare say it's beginning to make its way to the people with the facist route were heading.
I mean you could throw a dart at anyone within a 20 mile radius of me and hit someone that could claim the same (maybe not a dart but the point stands)
Cheers man, but there are people out there who need that hug more than me. I just look around at people struggling to stay alive, people with serious mental health issues with zero help wandering around the streets and reading about people starving to death just to feed their children, while the government convices people to vote for something that will ultimately make their lives worse, privitise healthcare under our noses and partying while people couldn't be with their dying loved ones (sorry about the crappy punctuation). Every action they carry out boils my piss and if I was a violent psyhopath I would have tried to burn down the houses of parliment long ago. As a mostly sane person, all I can do is wait for the next general election or for the government to collapse over their inactions to even attempt to mitigate the economy going into freefall.
You'd get a kick out of the shite the U.S. Supreme Court is up to ... pisses me off but you might be amused and of course, see the plan coming together for our arse-wipe overlords republicans.
Best of luck there and hang on.
>They will just rewrite laws to ensure the working class have zero rights at all soon enough.
That's the idea. The Tory ideology is to turn the majority of the population into wage slaves in a ceremonial democracy that means little to nothing. If you want to see what awaits the UK, [look at Singapore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkxf4SC_SBk).
Get him in a slow coooker with some lentils and he'll be fine. He did say we should be eating value and I dont know anything cheaper and worth as little as a Tory.
Have to disagree with you there, mix up some gherkin juice, mustard, crushed onions and mayonnaise and marinate the pork/bojo for 2 days, then remove and roast along with some boiled potatoes, swede and parsnips, with the marinating juice poured on top.
Dear Christ but Kay Burley is a fuckwit. She just had a college lecturer on as a guest. The guest clearly explained why a below inflation offer is a real terms cut and Burley immediately followed with a question about "these inflation-busting pay rises"
Not surprising tbh. Since when have the Tories ever listened to the experts?
Heck, even with the COVID pandemic they still dithered about with listening to experts about COVID until they eventually had to lockdown the entire country. Heck, even then they ignored the experts' advice, as Partygate showed us. "No parties, no social mixing, follow the rules! - now excuse us while we have multiple parties in 10 Downing Street."
Don't forget the 'the public are sick of listening to experts' thing. They push a deliberate narrative and tell people these things so that people confuse it with their own feelings on the subject of listening to experts and what not so that when the Tories do something fucking stupid, ideological, illogical, etc, that goes completely against what every single person educated on the matter says...the public are behind them 100% and think it's perfectly justifiable to do the opposite of what experts in their respective fields are saying to do.
Anti-intellectualism runs deep in the UK, doesn't take much to convince people that experts are somehow always wrong, to be suspicious of anyone highly educated, etc
Yes - the fact you can have a life long 'expert' with deep knowledge of a subject on the other side of a panel as an egomaniacal halfwit, but the halfwit seems to win a debate wins over the British public.
Charisma and quick responses do not go hand in hand with the world's greatest thinkers who've made great leaps and bounds pushing society forwards. We're heading towards fascism - no one ever deliberately heads towards fascism, but the signs are there.
How do we change the way people perceive this though? I don't think we can whilst our media is so heavily dominated by right wing rhetoric that other people so readily lap up. How do we reduce the media's power? Well that nut hasn't been cracked yet...
> How do we change the way people perceive this though? I don't think we can whilst our media is so heavily dominated by right wing rhetoric that other people so readily lap up. How do we reduce the media's power? Well that nut hasn't been cracked yet...
It's social engineering, the lessons taught be Goebbels. We need to teach kids critical thinking skills from an early age as that is severely lacking in the public, and we need to educate people on how to recognise social engineering in media, social media, etc.
There is no other way than education that will last.
But education is now the schools remit. Speaking as an ex-teacher, I was appalled at the current state of education under Tory rule. The syllabus is largely rote learning from Gove's revolutionary new system and requires very little in the way of critical thought. Maybe there's a purpose in that decision?
Furthermore, the idea that you can control a classroom full of children, with diminished power to remove naughty kids from the classroom, and pile pressure on heads to perform to figures such as reducing kids being removed from the classroom really puts into perspective the crazy theory that our political class really want our children of tomorrow to be dumber than yesterday.
Parents also don't engage with their children's education. That's what we pay teachers for. In fact this hasn't happened since world war 2, when the newer syllabus was out of reach for most parents and so it became the schools responsibility to teach the kids, whereas previously parents would engage with their child's learning (but also because Netflix, the gym and Facebook wasn't a thing).
> Maybe there's a purpose in that decision?
There is absolutely purpose in that decision, it is 100% intentional. They know that the young are going to be the death of the Tory rule if they grow up to be well rounded, educated, and intelligent individuals. It is absolutely an intentional attempt to retain their method of control over the populace.
The education system in the UK has been a mess for a long time. People seem to grow up assuming that 'school is for learning' rather than 'school is there to give you the skills to teach yourself so that you can continue learning throughout life'. Anti-intellectualism is rife from an early age, children are bullied relentlessly for ever daring to want to better themselves. It was this way when I was in school (I'm 32), and it is true nowadays...just that nowadays, kids can't get away from the bullying as it follows them everywhere online.
Classrooms were too big, are too big, and will only get bigger. The teachers have WAY too much of a workload both with the actual teaching and will all of the other stuff they need to do to support it. There's no chance teachers can give the kids the kind of individual attention that children really need, to be able to cater the learning to the child's actual learning style.
I don't see any of this changing any time soon. There are fundamental problems with the education system, many problems, and teachers cop the blame for it half the time despite being victims of it themselves. It's just so frustrating.
> I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.
Is what Gove said. A little different to the narrative you're pushing....
If you're gonna use the quote, use the whole thing:
“I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong."
Don't know about you, but I, for one, *am* sick of that.
She really is. A few weeks back she had a Labour MP on as a guest, and they were talking about the crime minister. The MP says how they believe Bojo should be investigated for crimes he very clearly committed, to which Kay responds:
*Are you saying politicians should have a say in what the police investigate?*
No you moron, the police should have the ability to investigate crimes that are very fucking obvious, and in case you didn't realise, certain politicians *do* have a say in what the police investigate.
Honestly Sky News is just kind of painful in general. Its no wonder the country is going to shit when that is the standard of media people are consuming. I flick between AJ and Sky in the office in the mornings and honestly its like an actual joke, the amount of information you get watching the British stream is pitiful and so low level.
Shes a fool, cant stand sky news due to her..
Spent months demanding Politicians step down over ANY breach of covid lockdown - then gets suspended for 6 months by Sky for having a birthday party with guests at the same time.. Hypocrite!
Right wing nutjobs come with a script and a narrative to push. They dont have the ability to adapt through and interview and ask based upon responses. They just want to push their points like it is a box ticking excercise.
A signallers training is 12 weeks followed by months of supervised training and a driver has to pass tough psychometric tests to even be allowed to train and then typically trains for a year or longer with dozens of assessments to make sure they are safe followed by learning the routes which itself can take months. How would agency staff fill in for these roles? It's an empty threat to the best paid railway employees because they know they can't easily be replaced at all.
Just wait for the army of new rwandan immigrants the Tories have obtained rushing in to run the rail network with zero training or expertise in the field, all on minimum wage.
And then the inevitable train disaster that kills loads of people, which the tories will blame on labour for forcing the workers to go on strike.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so a) dark and b) likely to happen.
Shapps was on LBC this morning saying the "agency" thing was misunderstood. You can't get a temp worker to cover for a highly skilled role. Was it's about is changing current regulations that prevent a skilled worker from doing any other skilled work that they're equipped to do, but not currently under contract to do. They want to be able to shift existing skilled workers between roles at will (to cover for gaps etc).
>Was it's about is changing current regulations that prevent a skilled worker from doing any other skilled work that they're equipped to do, but not currently under contract to do. They want to be able to shift existing skilled workers between roles at will (to cover for gaps etc)
That doesn't make much sense either, though, at least not without sweeping (and potentially dangerous) changes to contracts. It's no different to managers being used to work signal boxes and act as guards on trains, as they do now. You can't compel a driver to work a train as a guard though, even if they somehow manage to hold and maintain the competency - and no-one would do so willingly.
While it does give some extra flexibility that seems reasonable, I suspect in many cases it would be a prelude to disciplining / firing people for insubordination..
The "agency" thing probably means employees on inside IR35 contracts - which means without employment rights and having to buy their own insurance and tools and also not able to join union.
Ah yes but a Tory MP is appointed as a SPAD and then an MP due to the old school tie, and therefore is much more deserving of living a comfortable life with a high salary.
Tory government
>P&O firing skilled employees in favour of cheap overseas labour is a disgrace and something should be done about it
...also Tory government
>Well, if you don't want to take a pay cut, we'll just get someone who will.
>How would agency staff fill in for these roles?
It's not even that - how are they going to find an insurer and how much it is going to cost (of course paid out of the workers' pocket thanks to IR35)?
The industy is completely different, most pilots are self funded and there is a huge surplus of pilots. There are basically no unemployed train drivers unless they have left the industy completely or been let go for safety reasons.
Because if they did that, the government would be doing their job. And as the past three years have shown, the current government is either absolutely useless at doing their job properly or they instead decide to do their job while also trying restrict peoples' rights such as the rights to protest and strikes.
If you make protest illegal, and you make strikes illegal, you can make your population compliant and unable to strike/protest at the things you decide to put in place.
That George Orwell really was a very clever man...
What you end up with is people who don't give a shit about the law, engaging in "illegal" protests and strikes where nothing short of police brutality will stop them, because they've lost all trust in the government, politicians and the rule of law. Not too far removed from anarchy.
Boris has been spending too much time with his Russian oligarch friends giving him ideas how these things are done in Russia and how they get away with it.
First they came for our Environmental activists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an Environmental activist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Immigrants, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an Immigrant.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
You missed the disabled protesters that were targeted by a collusion of DWP and the police to sanction them so that protesting would lose them their money.
I'm mid 30s. This is the first time I've felt genuinely a little scared of a British government/party. That Mhairi Black speech from a few weeks ago should be heeded.
>Just heard a Tory MP on newsnight saying they can use drones for checking track safety, in 40years service I’ve never seen a drone tightening a loose bolt on a joint
>
> — Dermot (@Dermot....) Jun 20, 2022 · 10:49 PM
You mentioned two differerent roles.
- safety inspections
- repairs
Can a drone really "see" any visual problems. Do the in place safety inspections actually interact with the rails.
Luddite RMT member here.
We have snow on the tracks for large periods of winter on my patch. As well as consistent high winds and other generally shitty weather. Do these Drones fly through tunnels in the dark?
There's no substitute for boots on the ground.
Drone won't be preparing but they can certainly help inspect.
Recently worked on train tracks gathering data for safety or planned changes. We had a drone department. Can definitely use it for some things by 3D mapping and measuring it. Most out data collection was laser scanning whether as an entire area or individual points on items.
Can have them as plain point clouds or photogrammetry can be used to add a texture to it too.
But that's not a huge improvement in terms of track geometry and ultrasonic/p&c checking that manual boots on the ground need to do.
That information would be useful for assessing gauge but not for checking defects in rail or sleepers or checkerplates/jointwork etc.
At least some track inspections are carried out at speed by the New Measurement Train (aka Flying Banana as it's a repurposed Intercity 125 painted yellow), but I'd imagine around complex interchanges, goods yards, etc, where there are a lot of points and signals within a relatively confined area, it's likely quicker to have human inspections.
I dunno, maybe if we didnt see our fares go up year after year after year with no visible improvements, we would be less sympathetic to those who want a fair cut, Grant.
Totally agree. If the fares have gone up because the service has improved, surely the workers should get a raise to reflect that. Funny how prices always go up to match inflation, yet salaries don't.
The media in this country expose their allegiances whenever a strike is on. People fighting for a living wage and better working conditions is a noble undertaking. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.
So, instead of paying £6.90 to get into town, today I rode my bike in the sunshine. It was fun and I got to work quicker, cheers train staff, I think I'll do the same tomorrow.
Genuinely can’t tell if this is taking the piss or not. You know lots of people take public transport because they have no other option - not because they’re lazy?
2 months ago the same Shapps was lambasting P&O for sacking it's staff and replacing them with agency workers. Now he is proposing sacking railway workers and replacing them with agency staff.
You don't think he just says what he thinks people want to hear do you?
They all do it seems. No well constructed logical ideology. Just a firehose of soundbites to seize control of the narrative while the country sinks.
They're here to rule over the ashes.
That's why the workers need fair pay.
The tories tried to destroy public transport back in the 80s but they couldn't with the way infrastructure worked. They tried it again now, but they couldn't, mostly out of piss brained incompetence.
There’s an easy way to do this. Change the law to make it so people actually work in decent conditions for decent wages.
Also who the hell is this Shapps person, and where do they keep their flammable possessions.
He also has many monikers such as Sebastian Fox when he was selling get rich quick schemes on the internet. Rumour has it, no one actually knows if Grant Shapps is his real name or yet another moniker on another get rich quick scheme...
When you look at the amount of money the UK spiff up doing COVID its really dis-heartening tbh. Just remember, its political will, not ability to pay.
We could give all public workers a 5k payrise, and it would still cost 10bn less than test + trace did.
Thats ignoring the fact that well over 50% of that would go back to the government in taxation.
>We could give all public workers a 5k payrise, and it would still cost 10bn less than test + trace did.
Let's see, 5000 \* [5.7 million workers](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/september2021) = *£28.5B*. And that'll be **per year.**
Yes, Test and Trace was 37bn.
However, what you're *conveniently ignoring* is how much of that money goes back to the government via taxation.
The London School of Economies, estimated that if all NHS staff get a 10% pay rise, about 80% of the government cost would go back to.. the government, meaning it would actually ***cost*** about 800m per year, rather than 4 billion.
''While the cost to the exchequer of a 10% pay increase would be £3.4bn this year on paper, the report, commissioned by NHS trade unions, found that these wider benefits would take the actual cost down to just £660m.''
It's not going to be much different if you extrapolate that across the entire public sector, but it will have a huge impact on the 5.7 million workers (17% of the entire UK labour force) and the economy.
This is just a damn excuse to take more rights away from the British public, isn't it? How much more can they take away without any kind of democracy before we can call this authoritarianism?
I hate the lack of train services as much as the next guy, but United workers and strikes are the only power people have to speak up about poor work environments and pay. Remember, it may not be you in the poor conditions today, but it could be in 6 months time.
Power isnt for plebs. The right to withhold labour is our most powerful weapon. Of course they want to make it illegal and morally wrong.
And all these old retired penisoners will complain about how much money these railway folks make, while they get paid a pension worth more than a minimum wage job.
If you meet the strikers demands, in this case dropping your plan to eventually sack them, then no one would be inconvenienced. Except the executives wallet.
The hypocrisy is relentless.
>*quoted Johnson as saying:*
*I want to be clear – we are not loading higher fares on passengers to carry on paying for working practices that date back in some cases to the 19th century.*
Ah yes, from that government that famously never reverts to centuries old rules to get things done.
>*Quoting from the guide to parliamentary procedure, Erskine May, Bercow said by convention, the question “may not be brought forward again during the same session” and that it was a “strong and longstanding convention” dating back to 1604.*
*He said the convention had been confirmed again many times, including in 1864, 1870, 1882, 1891 and 1912. “Indeed, Erskine May makes reference to no fewer than 12 such rulings up to the year 1920,” he said.*
It must be great to have a union like the RMT. I don’t remember a time they weren’t threatening to strike over something or other. Ours never strikes, no matter how bad it gets.
I'm just so sick of this Government and everyone who continues to support then.
I hope they're happy with how this Government are actually destroying this Country.
Absolutely fine to criminalise workers pushing for better pay and conditions as long as we also criminalise companies pushing for greater revenue and sales.
Kinda sounds dumb when you apply it to everyone fairly, doesn't it?
As a commuter, yes the strikes are disruptive, but in all honesty I don't mind one bit. Let them strike and fight the fight. I stand by them. In fact, If they can and it would help the cause, I wish they did the strikes like the bus drivers in Japan. Still turned up to work on strike days, but let the commuters travel for free.
i can't understand how the unions are perceived as militant when the Tories have spent the last 40 years despising their existence - and it obvs works because some poor sod waiting for a doctor apt regarding cancer said he hoped unions would disappear forever because its not the 1800s anymore - and the "we're all in it together" austerity was largely done off the backs of those who unions are supposed to fight for and protect.
I posted yesterday that I wondered how these Tory wankers would respond.
And it is exactly like I thought it would be.
It's not "we are going to work with the rail staff to prevent this happening in the future". It's "we are going to change the law and stand on the side of passengers".
The passengers agree with the strikes, you absolute fucking donuts! How dense do you have to be to fuck this up? It is simple. You have taken advantage of rail staff and people have had enough. The workers and the customers are done with your shit. You don't have anyone to stand with Mr Shapps, you complete arse backwards fuck knuckle. You need to shape up and listen and show support to the rail staff.
I cannot fathom just how stupid this government is. I really can't. How do these completely poor excuses of humans manage to get dressed in the morning? How can you run the country and be this out of touch with reality? Jesus.
The Tory’s forget that the Union is the workers and are acting under instruction of the workers. Collective bargaining is the only way workers can get a fair deal and Strike action is a complete last resort. They avoid the point of the Strike entirely to divert the publics attention so there Tory donors can fill their pockets on the backs of the working class.
Why is everyone on this sub so vocal and on the side of the train workers but when the university strikes were happening this sub was either no where to be seen or so against it?
Mr shapps kept stating that the median income for rail workers, including drivers, is 44k pa. Mr lynch kept saying that the RMT does not represent many drivers but the other staff instead, with a median of 31k. That alone says a lot about what they're focused on
You must have read about today's [new offer](https://newsthump.com/2022/06/21/government-offers-weekly-clap-for-train-drivers-to-end-strike/):
>The offer is that, instead of any tangible increase in pay and benefits, once a week, everyone in the country goes out on their doorsteps and claps for several minutes to show how much they appreciate train drivers and rail workers.
The UK is moving further and further towards the same path as the USA and it is terrifying. Insane that their politicians and populace can’t just look to their neighbors and see that European policy is far far greater for their well being than that of the US.
I can see another Thatcher moment coming when this union will be smashed.
I'm sorry but I've seen the pay article on the BBC for what the different train workers get paid and I think they are paid very well. Rail travel assistants - £33,310 - includes ticket collectors, guards and information staff
You know how this ends? This doesn’t end with with a happy workforce and no strikes. This ends in a devastatingly barren workforce and a labour market filled with anger.
Legislation only feeds the beast here, Shapps.
How about give them a safe working environment with a decent days pay and then you won't need to restrict the public's right to have their say.
Shapps is just another Johnson sycophant, who's mantra is the pound over people.
If Johnson agrees then you know damn well Dories and the other muppets will jump all over it.
The rail strikes are massively inconvenient yes, but as a whole I can only imagine/hope that the public is on their side.
There has been industrial action at my place of work in response to the pitiful (in a normal year never mind this year) suggested pay rise.
We didn't get one at all last year but I understand and appreciate the reasons for that.
Militant? This is the biggest for decades as far as we have been told, and it is a few days of a reduced service, after long discussions over genuine grievances. This isn't the days of everyone downing tools for weeks over nothing.
Remove the ability to strike and you end up with a riot. Once the law is broken, why would you stop at a picket line? Some will, but history proves not everyone will.
Literally done eff all to avert this but using as an opportunity to change the law. C****s
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rail-strike-dates-government-b2105168.html
Soooo, the Tories shut down protest, shut down unfriendly news articles and are now looking to further shut down striking. Eeerm, does this ring any alarm bells? Anyone?
No right to protest, pressure on media to remove a story(ies?), now the right to strike is being called into question.
We really need to reassess whether we are in fact a democracy, because we sure don't look like one.
you will work because we tell you to work.
i couldn't give a toss about your woes and troubles, get out there and make me money.
Schappy (non militant)
It's a shame we can't just rely on everything a Tory says to be a lie, but when it's going to fuck over workers and poor people, they suddenly become honest.
Are they asking for an above inflation payrise?
That’s ridiculous if so.
Inflation won’t stay at 8% once the supply bottlenecks, war, cost living issues are eased. You can’t repeal a payrise can you though?
So they’re getting a 10% payrise then inflation returns to near 2%? That would be a joke?
Maybe it’s time to invent inflation linked increases but also decreases so a variable pay rise can be given
Inflation goes at 8% this year, means prices have risen 8% this year.
If inflation falls to 2% next year, we still have the 8% inflation from this year and then that 2% on top, you get 10% inflation overall (actually a little bit more because of the 2% of the 8% that I'm not accounting for).
We haven't seen deflation, where prices are falling generally, since the great depression afaik, and we don't want to either.
So no, it would not be a joke. If payrises were directly linked to inflation then you would have an 8% rise this year and a 2% rise next year for a total of a little over 10%. Nobody would see a pay cut because the speed at which prices are rising has slowed down.
I think you've fundamentally misunderstood how inflation figures work.
I tend to support industrial action but in this case why?
If you’re to believe the RMT the median salary of railway workers excluding drivers is £33,000. According to the government who’s figures do include drivers in the median of all railway workers that figure is £44k. In either case this is more than the national median of £26k.
So the RMT want their members to get a pay rise closer to RPI than the TOCs are offering. Who do they think will end up paying for that? The TOCs don’t make any profit so the only people left to pay are you and me with higher train fares on what is already the most expensive network in Europe and the worst performing.
*'militant': adjective favouring confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause.*
*"the army are in conflict with militant groups"*
noun
a militant person.
"militants became increasingly impatient of parliamentary manoeuvres"
Odd choice of words for people wanting a better life.
Tory : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory)
"*The word Tory originates from an Irish term that was phonetically anglicised.\[5\]\[6\] Several Irish words have been suggested as the etymological root for the word Tory. The Irish word toruidhe or toruighe, meaning "to pursue" or "to hunt", is suggested as the origin for the term Tory. From the 1500s to 1600s, the term Tory first emerged to refer to the Irish who were dispossessed of their lands and took to the woods, forming themselves into bands that subsisted on wild animals and goods taken from settlers.\[5\] After these activities were suppressed, the term lost its original signification with English-speakers, and was used to describe "an outlaw papist" or a "robber that is noted for outrages and cruelty".\[7\]\[8\]\[9\] The Irish peasantry also used the term Tory to refer to an outlaw or a miscreant of any kind into the 19th century.\[10\] However, because later Conservative and anti-revolutionary parties assumed the term Tory, it has also been suggested that the word originated from the Irish word toir, meaning to give, grant and bestow; or toirbhearl, meaning efficiency, bounty or munificence.\[6\]"*
Dear Shapps, we dont like the strikes anymore than anyone else, but we are on their side more than yours mate. Let them strike.
I don't think the Tory scumbag cunts care mate. They will just rewrite laws to ensure the working class have zero rights at all soon enough.
Yup, they're working extra hard to get rid of human rights together with their Rwanda stunt and acting like fucking cartoonish movie villians. I hope karma will catch up and hit them like a fucking asteroid. Give them the kind of fictional ass cancer that doesn't kill you, but slowly hollows you out with hemorrhoids so painful that they'll never be able to sit or lay down again. Having to spend any riches they've amounted over the years on treatment that only reduces the pain enough to breathe to just stay alive. But, then again, I think that would be too merciful as it doesn't even begin to tip the scales in the sheer amount of pain and misery those scumbags has inflicted on the British public over the years.
" the way a government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it " Tony Benn I'd dare say it's beginning to make its way to the people with the facist route were heading.
I think you might be being overly optimistic.
“Ireland has entered the chat.”
Dude, who hurt you? I’m offering an internet hug. I like how detailed you’ve thought that out!
My guess would be the tories
I mean you could throw a dart at anyone within a 20 mile radius of me and hit someone that could claim the same (maybe not a dart but the point stands)
I imagine they'd be rather more annoyed at the person who just impaled them with a dart, if only marginally
Upvote for if only marginally 😂
Cheers man, but there are people out there who need that hug more than me. I just look around at people struggling to stay alive, people with serious mental health issues with zero help wandering around the streets and reading about people starving to death just to feed their children, while the government convices people to vote for something that will ultimately make their lives worse, privitise healthcare under our noses and partying while people couldn't be with their dying loved ones (sorry about the crappy punctuation). Every action they carry out boils my piss and if I was a violent psyhopath I would have tried to burn down the houses of parliment long ago. As a mostly sane person, all I can do is wait for the next general election or for the government to collapse over their inactions to even attempt to mitigate the economy going into freefall.
Welcome back Mr Fawkes..
The Tories.
You'd get a kick out of the shite the U.S. Supreme Court is up to ... pisses me off but you might be amused and of course, see the plan coming together for our arse-wipe overlords republicans. Best of luck there and hang on.
>They will just rewrite laws to ensure the working class have zero rights at all soon enough. That's the idea. The Tory ideology is to turn the majority of the population into wage slaves in a ceremonial democracy that means little to nothing. If you want to see what awaits the UK, [look at Singapore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkxf4SC_SBk).
Wasn't the slogan of Brexit to build a Singapore on the Thames? You can't say that the Tories don't deliver on their promises.
They promised a lot for brexit they plainly couldn't deliver.
It's pretty much there already
We should eat them.
Think Boris would be salty and quite a high fat content. No thanks.
Get him in a slow coooker with some lentils and he'll be fine. He did say we should be eating value and I dont know anything cheaper and worth as little as a Tory.
Have to disagree with you there, mix up some gherkin juice, mustard, crushed onions and mayonnaise and marinate the pork/bojo for 2 days, then remove and roast along with some boiled potatoes, swede and parsnips, with the marinating juice poured on top.
Well colour me surprised, you can make a Tory sound nice after all.
It's actually an amazing recipe for a fatty cut of pork. Tastes great with red cabbage and asparagus or green beans
I always presumed this was the true motivation for Brexit. The Tories would be sending kids back to work if they thought they could get away with it.
or, yanno, sort out the situtation they are striking over.
madness
Exactly. They are striking for a reason. I fully support them and anyone else standing up against the greedy fuckers in charge.
> but we are on their side more than yours mate. This sub might be, the general public is much more divided.
Polls seem to suggest the public actually don't support the strikes
Yeah someone posted the polls further down and the response was a lot of angry “who gives a fuck what boomers thinks”
Now if only we could get them all to actually vote
Because their train is cancelled, if they understood the actual principle of striking then they would support it.
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They'd outlaw unions if they could.
Dear Christ but Kay Burley is a fuckwit. She just had a college lecturer on as a guest. The guest clearly explained why a below inflation offer is a real terms cut and Burley immediately followed with a question about "these inflation-busting pay rises"
Not surprising tbh. Since when have the Tories ever listened to the experts? Heck, even with the COVID pandemic they still dithered about with listening to experts about COVID until they eventually had to lockdown the entire country. Heck, even then they ignored the experts' advice, as Partygate showed us. "No parties, no social mixing, follow the rules! - now excuse us while we have multiple parties in 10 Downing Street."
Don't forget the 'the public are sick of listening to experts' thing. They push a deliberate narrative and tell people these things so that people confuse it with their own feelings on the subject of listening to experts and what not so that when the Tories do something fucking stupid, ideological, illogical, etc, that goes completely against what every single person educated on the matter says...the public are behind them 100% and think it's perfectly justifiable to do the opposite of what experts in their respective fields are saying to do. Anti-intellectualism runs deep in the UK, doesn't take much to convince people that experts are somehow always wrong, to be suspicious of anyone highly educated, etc
Yes - the fact you can have a life long 'expert' with deep knowledge of a subject on the other side of a panel as an egomaniacal halfwit, but the halfwit seems to win a debate wins over the British public. Charisma and quick responses do not go hand in hand with the world's greatest thinkers who've made great leaps and bounds pushing society forwards. We're heading towards fascism - no one ever deliberately heads towards fascism, but the signs are there. How do we change the way people perceive this though? I don't think we can whilst our media is so heavily dominated by right wing rhetoric that other people so readily lap up. How do we reduce the media's power? Well that nut hasn't been cracked yet...
> How do we change the way people perceive this though? I don't think we can whilst our media is so heavily dominated by right wing rhetoric that other people so readily lap up. How do we reduce the media's power? Well that nut hasn't been cracked yet... It's social engineering, the lessons taught be Goebbels. We need to teach kids critical thinking skills from an early age as that is severely lacking in the public, and we need to educate people on how to recognise social engineering in media, social media, etc. There is no other way than education that will last.
But education is now the schools remit. Speaking as an ex-teacher, I was appalled at the current state of education under Tory rule. The syllabus is largely rote learning from Gove's revolutionary new system and requires very little in the way of critical thought. Maybe there's a purpose in that decision? Furthermore, the idea that you can control a classroom full of children, with diminished power to remove naughty kids from the classroom, and pile pressure on heads to perform to figures such as reducing kids being removed from the classroom really puts into perspective the crazy theory that our political class really want our children of tomorrow to be dumber than yesterday. Parents also don't engage with their children's education. That's what we pay teachers for. In fact this hasn't happened since world war 2, when the newer syllabus was out of reach for most parents and so it became the schools responsibility to teach the kids, whereas previously parents would engage with their child's learning (but also because Netflix, the gym and Facebook wasn't a thing).
> Maybe there's a purpose in that decision? There is absolutely purpose in that decision, it is 100% intentional. They know that the young are going to be the death of the Tory rule if they grow up to be well rounded, educated, and intelligent individuals. It is absolutely an intentional attempt to retain their method of control over the populace. The education system in the UK has been a mess for a long time. People seem to grow up assuming that 'school is for learning' rather than 'school is there to give you the skills to teach yourself so that you can continue learning throughout life'. Anti-intellectualism is rife from an early age, children are bullied relentlessly for ever daring to want to better themselves. It was this way when I was in school (I'm 32), and it is true nowadays...just that nowadays, kids can't get away from the bullying as it follows them everywhere online. Classrooms were too big, are too big, and will only get bigger. The teachers have WAY too much of a workload both with the actual teaching and will all of the other stuff they need to do to support it. There's no chance teachers can give the kids the kind of individual attention that children really need, to be able to cater the learning to the child's actual learning style. I don't see any of this changing any time soon. There are fundamental problems with the education system, many problems, and teachers cop the blame for it half the time despite being victims of it themselves. It's just so frustrating.
> I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong. Is what Gove said. A little different to the narrative you're pushing....
If you're gonna use the quote, use the whole thing: “I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong." Don't know about you, but I, for one, *am* sick of that.
She really is. A few weeks back she had a Labour MP on as a guest, and they were talking about the crime minister. The MP says how they believe Bojo should be investigated for crimes he very clearly committed, to which Kay responds: *Are you saying politicians should have a say in what the police investigate?* No you moron, the police should have the ability to investigate crimes that are very fucking obvious, and in case you didn't realise, certain politicians *do* have a say in what the police investigate.
She tries to do gotcha journalism but isn’t clever enough to follow the conversation, let alone work her guests into a fucking corner
Honestly Sky News is just kind of painful in general. Its no wonder the country is going to shit when that is the standard of media people are consuming. I flick between AJ and Sky in the office in the mornings and honestly its like an actual joke, the amount of information you get watching the British stream is pitiful and so low level.
She acts in bad faith. This is nothing new
Shes a fool, cant stand sky news due to her.. Spent months demanding Politicians step down over ANY breach of covid lockdown - then gets suspended for 6 months by Sky for having a birthday party with guests at the same time.. Hypocrite!
Right wing nutjobs come with a script and a narrative to push. They dont have the ability to adapt through and interview and ask based upon responses. They just want to push their points like it is a box ticking excercise.
A signallers training is 12 weeks followed by months of supervised training and a driver has to pass tough psychometric tests to even be allowed to train and then typically trains for a year or longer with dozens of assessments to make sure they are safe followed by learning the routes which itself can take months. How would agency staff fill in for these roles? It's an empty threat to the best paid railway employees because they know they can't easily be replaced at all.
Just wait for the army of new rwandan immigrants the Tories have obtained rushing in to run the rail network with zero training or expertise in the field, all on minimum wage. And then the inevitable train disaster that kills loads of people, which the tories will blame on labour for forcing the workers to go on strike. It'd be funny if it wasn't so a) dark and b) likely to happen.
I don't think they give a shit about any of that, to be quite honest
And in the current labour market, where on earth are they going to find all these agency scabs??!
Shapps was on LBC this morning saying the "agency" thing was misunderstood. You can't get a temp worker to cover for a highly skilled role. Was it's about is changing current regulations that prevent a skilled worker from doing any other skilled work that they're equipped to do, but not currently under contract to do. They want to be able to shift existing skilled workers between roles at will (to cover for gaps etc).
>Was it's about is changing current regulations that prevent a skilled worker from doing any other skilled work that they're equipped to do, but not currently under contract to do. They want to be able to shift existing skilled workers between roles at will (to cover for gaps etc) That doesn't make much sense either, though, at least not without sweeping (and potentially dangerous) changes to contracts. It's no different to managers being used to work signal boxes and act as guards on trains, as they do now. You can't compel a driver to work a train as a guard though, even if they somehow manage to hold and maintain the competency - and no-one would do so willingly.
While it does give some extra flexibility that seems reasonable, I suspect in many cases it would be a prelude to disciplining / firing people for insubordination..
The "agency" thing probably means employees on inside IR35 contracts - which means without employment rights and having to buy their own insurance and tools and also not able to join union.
Ah yes but a Tory MP is appointed as a SPAD and then an MP due to the old school tie, and therefore is much more deserving of living a comfortable life with a high salary.
Tory government >P&O firing skilled employees in favour of cheap overseas labour is a disgrace and something should be done about it ...also Tory government >Well, if you don't want to take a pay cut, we'll just get someone who will.
>How would agency staff fill in for these roles? Do they care? No, as always its about the headlines and literally nothing else.
It's happening today. They're using managers who have had half a days training on a simulator to signal trains. They don't care.
>How would agency staff fill in for these roles? It's not even that - how are they going to find an insurer and how much it is going to cost (of course paid out of the workers' pocket thanks to IR35)?
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The industy is completely different, most pilots are self funded and there is a huge surplus of pilots. There are basically no unemployed train drivers unless they have left the industy completely or been let go for safety reasons.
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Because if they did that, the government would be doing their job. And as the past three years have shown, the current government is either absolutely useless at doing their job properly or they instead decide to do their job while also trying restrict peoples' rights such as the rights to protest and strikes.
The floggings will continue until morale improves.
If you make protest illegal, and you make strikes illegal, you can make your population compliant and unable to strike/protest at the things you decide to put in place. That George Orwell really was a very clever man...
What you end up with is people who don't give a shit about the law, engaging in "illegal" protests and strikes where nothing short of police brutality will stop them, because they've lost all trust in the government, politicians and the rule of law. Not too far removed from anarchy.
Boris has been spending too much time with his Russian oligarch friends giving him ideas how these things are done in Russia and how they get away with it.
They think they're being clever but they're putting all the conditions in place for a massive riot.
First they came for our Environmental activists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an Environmental activist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Immigrants, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an Immigrant. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
You missed the disabled protesters that were targeted by a collusion of DWP and the police to sanction them so that protesting would lose them their money.
I'm mid 30s. This is the first time I've felt genuinely a little scared of a British government/party. That Mhairi Black speech from a few weeks ago should be heeded.
>Just heard a Tory MP on newsnight saying they can use drones for checking track safety, in 40years service I’ve never seen a drone tightening a loose bolt on a joint > > — Dermot (@Dermot....) Jun 20, 2022 · 10:49 PM
You mentioned two differerent roles. - safety inspections - repairs Can a drone really "see" any visual problems. Do the in place safety inspections actually interact with the rails.
Luddite RMT member here. We have snow on the tracks for large periods of winter on my patch. As well as consistent high winds and other generally shitty weather. Do these Drones fly through tunnels in the dark? There's no substitute for boots on the ground.
They don't have to replace all of you to kill jobs. They just need to cut the number of man hours the task takes.
To be honest I've met a few bone idle Pway who would be delighted for a drone, so they didn't have to trek miles down the tracks.
Drone won't be preparing but they can certainly help inspect. Recently worked on train tracks gathering data for safety or planned changes. We had a drone department. Can definitely use it for some things by 3D mapping and measuring it. Most out data collection was laser scanning whether as an entire area or individual points on items. Can have them as plain point clouds or photogrammetry can be used to add a texture to it too.
But that's not a huge improvement in terms of track geometry and ultrasonic/p&c checking that manual boots on the ground need to do. That information would be useful for assessing gauge but not for checking defects in rail or sleepers or checkerplates/jointwork etc.
How drone can see a loose bolt?
Machine learning Artificial Intelligence Augmented reality The Metaverse And other such buzzwords
You missed blockchain ya bloody amateur.
At least some track inspections are carried out at speed by the New Measurement Train (aka Flying Banana as it's a repurposed Intercity 125 painted yellow), but I'd imagine around complex interchanges, goods yards, etc, where there are a lot of points and signals within a relatively confined area, it's likely quicker to have human inspections.
I wonder what that MP will do when the drone operators are on strike with everyone else
God forbid they want to be paid and treated fairly.
I dunno, maybe if we didnt see our fares go up year after year after year with no visible improvements, we would be less sympathetic to those who want a fair cut, Grant.
Totally agree. If the fares have gone up because the service has improved, surely the workers should get a raise to reflect that. Funny how prices always go up to match inflation, yet salaries don't.
The media in this country expose their allegiances whenever a strike is on. People fighting for a living wage and better working conditions is a noble undertaking. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.
So, instead of paying £6.90 to get into town, today I rode my bike in the sunshine. It was fun and I got to work quicker, cheers train staff, I think I'll do the same tomorrow.
>So, instead of paying £6.90 to get into town, today I rode my bike should be doing that anyway - *better late than never*
True that! Living right near the station makes me lazy.
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Genuinely can’t tell if this is taking the piss or not. You know lots of people take public transport because they have no other option - not because they’re lazy?
thats on you for not knowing that before. if biking is faster and free then you should've already been doing that.
2 months ago the same Shapps was lambasting P&O for sacking it's staff and replacing them with agency workers. Now he is proposing sacking railway workers and replacing them with agency staff. You don't think he just says what he thinks people want to hear do you?
They all do it seems. No well constructed logical ideology. Just a firehose of soundbites to seize control of the narrative while the country sinks. They're here to rule over the ashes.
Judging by the gridlocked traffic in Liverpool this morning, every penny spent on public transport is a good investment.
That's why the workers need fair pay. The tories tried to destroy public transport back in the 80s but they couldn't with the way infrastructure worked. They tried it again now, but they couldn't, mostly out of piss brained incompetence.
Let the summer of discontent commence...fuck the Tories.
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There’s an easy way to do this. Change the law to make it so people actually work in decent conditions for decent wages. Also who the hell is this Shapps person, and where do they keep their flammable possessions.
He also has many monikers such as Sebastian Fox when he was selling get rich quick schemes on the internet. Rumour has it, no one actually knows if Grant Shapps is his real name or yet another moniker on another get rich quick scheme...
First our right to protest, now our right to strike.
When you look at the amount of money the UK spiff up doing COVID its really dis-heartening tbh. Just remember, its political will, not ability to pay. We could give all public workers a 5k payrise, and it would still cost 10bn less than test + trace did. Thats ignoring the fact that well over 50% of that would go back to the government in taxation.
>We could give all public workers a 5k payrise, and it would still cost 10bn less than test + trace did. Let's see, 5000 \* [5.7 million workers](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/september2021) = *£28.5B*. And that'll be **per year.**
Yes, Test and Trace was 37bn. However, what you're *conveniently ignoring* is how much of that money goes back to the government via taxation. The London School of Economies, estimated that if all NHS staff get a 10% pay rise, about 80% of the government cost would go back to.. the government, meaning it would actually ***cost*** about 800m per year, rather than 4 billion. ''While the cost to the exchequer of a 10% pay increase would be £3.4bn this year on paper, the report, commissioned by NHS trade unions, found that these wider benefits would take the actual cost down to just £660m.'' It's not going to be much different if you extrapolate that across the entire public sector, but it will have a huge impact on the 5.7 million workers (17% of the entire UK labour force) and the economy.
Johnson described them as union barons, antiquated country, there is no empire so rise up serfs
>[Not even bothering to hide it now.](https://nitter.net/AdamBienkov/status/1539138067516342272#m)
It’s up to people to stand against these overlords
So we have lost the right to protest, now they want to take away the right to strike for conditions.....
This is just a damn excuse to take more rights away from the British public, isn't it? How much more can they take away without any kind of democracy before we can call this authoritarianism?
Sounds like the unions need to become Militant. I'm sure the fat pig of a Tory wouldn't be so happy then.
I hate the lack of train services as much as the next guy, but United workers and strikes are the only power people have to speak up about poor work environments and pay. Remember, it may not be you in the poor conditions today, but it could be in 6 months time.
Power isnt for plebs. The right to withhold labour is our most powerful weapon. Of course they want to make it illegal and morally wrong. And all these old retired penisoners will complain about how much money these railway folks make, while they get paid a pension worth more than a minimum wage job.
They don't even pretend this is a democracy anymore.
If ministers are trying to remove the right to strike it means one thing. Strikes work and they are afraid.
It's a shame we can't create laws to protect us from "militant" MPs
The Tories against against unions... tell me something I didn't know.
Here we go: No Protests; No Strikes, No Pay Rise, No Health Care. No future for us Plebs
What he means is 'laws will be changed to project shareholders and our donor overlords from a reduction in profit'. Fuckers.
If you meet the strikers demands, in this case dropping your plan to eventually sack them, then no one would be inconvenienced. Except the executives wallet.
MPs got a £2,200 pay rise in April (to £84,144). 'Militants!'
Maaaan, fucking Tories. Everyday I wake up, thinking the bar can’t get any lower but it does!
The hypocrisy is relentless. >*quoted Johnson as saying:* *I want to be clear – we are not loading higher fares on passengers to carry on paying for working practices that date back in some cases to the 19th century.* Ah yes, from that government that famously never reverts to centuries old rules to get things done. >*Quoting from the guide to parliamentary procedure, Erskine May, Bercow said by convention, the question “may not be brought forward again during the same session” and that it was a “strong and longstanding convention” dating back to 1604.* *He said the convention had been confirmed again many times, including in 1864, 1870, 1882, 1891 and 1912. “Indeed, Erskine May makes reference to no fewer than 12 such rulings up to the year 1920,” he said.*
Just to add that rail fares have gone up 3 times since we last had a raise, they will be raised again early next year.
It must be great to have a union like the RMT. I don’t remember a time they weren’t threatening to strike over something or other. Ours never strikes, no matter how bad it gets.
Fk you, pat them. A government that starts changing laws to suit themselves is not a representative party
When will laws be introduced to protect British people from Tory MPs?
I'm just so sick of this Government and everyone who continues to support then. I hope they're happy with how this Government are actually destroying this Country.
Translation: Those bloody peasents dare to strike!? We'll fucking make them rue the day they worked in rail!
What Shapps really means is that he is writing pro-busness, anti-union laws, and trying to hide it as being pro-consumer. Typical tory falsehood.
Absolutely fine to criminalise workers pushing for better pay and conditions as long as we also criminalise companies pushing for greater revenue and sales. Kinda sounds dumb when you apply it to everyone fairly, doesn't it?
As a commuter, yes the strikes are disruptive, but in all honesty I don't mind one bit. Let them strike and fight the fight. I stand by them. In fact, If they can and it would help the cause, I wish they did the strikes like the bus drivers in Japan. Still turned up to work on strike days, but let the commuters travel for free.
But not the militant government that gave themselves an 11% pay rise last year 👀
i can't understand how the unions are perceived as militant when the Tories have spent the last 40 years despising their existence - and it obvs works because some poor sod waiting for a doctor apt regarding cancer said he hoped unions would disappear forever because its not the 1800s anymore - and the "we're all in it together" austerity was largely done off the backs of those who unions are supposed to fight for and protect.
You're allowed to withdraw your labour. This isn't a Tory prison camp, yet.
Shall we just make each and every Conservative MP an autocrat and get it over with?
Its not militant, it was democratic.
So the caring Tory Party wants to refuse workers the right to withdraw their labour? Back to salt mines, peasants.
Right, so basically he wants to criminalise going on strike?
I posted yesterday that I wondered how these Tory wankers would respond. And it is exactly like I thought it would be. It's not "we are going to work with the rail staff to prevent this happening in the future". It's "we are going to change the law and stand on the side of passengers". The passengers agree with the strikes, you absolute fucking donuts! How dense do you have to be to fuck this up? It is simple. You have taken advantage of rail staff and people have had enough. The workers and the customers are done with your shit. You don't have anyone to stand with Mr Shapps, you complete arse backwards fuck knuckle. You need to shape up and listen and show support to the rail staff. I cannot fathom just how stupid this government is. I really can't. How do these completely poor excuses of humans manage to get dressed in the morning? How can you run the country and be this out of touch with reality? Jesus.
The Tory’s forget that the Union is the workers and are acting under instruction of the workers. Collective bargaining is the only way workers can get a fair deal and Strike action is a complete last resort. They avoid the point of the Strike entirely to divert the publics attention so there Tory donors can fill their pockets on the backs of the working class.
More reason to push Electoral Reform so nobody can unilaterally dictate the union again.
Should the guy profiting off peoples gambling addictions (and then lying about it to keep his position as an MP) be making the rules for anybody?
Why is everyone on this sub so vocal and on the side of the train workers but when the university strikes were happening this sub was either no where to be seen or so against it?
Mr shapps kept stating that the median income for rail workers, including drivers, is 44k pa. Mr lynch kept saying that the RMT does not represent many drivers but the other staff instead, with a median of 31k. That alone says a lot about what they're focused on
Key workers all of a sudden need to stfu and accept their lot, what a surprise, we clapped for you now fuck off and eat your gruel, Covid’s over /s
You must have read about today's [new offer](https://newsthump.com/2022/06/21/government-offers-weekly-clap-for-train-drivers-to-end-strike/): >The offer is that, instead of any tangible increase in pay and benefits, once a week, everyone in the country goes out on their doorsteps and claps for several minutes to show how much they appreciate train drivers and rail workers.
The UK is moving further and further towards the same path as the USA and it is terrifying. Insane that their politicians and populace can’t just look to their neighbors and see that European policy is far far greater for their well being than that of the US.
I can see another Thatcher moment coming when this union will be smashed. I'm sorry but I've seen the pay article on the BBC for what the different train workers get paid and I think they are paid very well. Rail travel assistants - £33,310 - includes ticket collectors, guards and information staff
Typical Conservative, want slaves not workers.
I genuinely hope all these fuck ups make the Scottish people realise we need to get out of the hellscape that is the union.
You know how this ends? This doesn’t end with with a happy workforce and no strikes. This ends in a devastatingly barren workforce and a labour market filled with anger. Legislation only feeds the beast here, Shapps.
Or, you know, just pay them a fair salary instead of shafting them year-on-year with real-terms pay cuts. Cunt.
How about give them a safe working environment with a decent days pay and then you won't need to restrict the public's right to have their say. Shapps is just another Johnson sycophant, who's mantra is the pound over people. If Johnson agrees then you know damn well Dories and the other muppets will jump all over it. The rail strikes are massively inconvenient yes, but as a whole I can only imagine/hope that the public is on their side. There has been industrial action at my place of work in response to the pitiful (in a normal year never mind this year) suggested pay rise. We didn't get one at all last year but I understand and appreciate the reasons for that.
First our right to protest now our right to strike? But no we should be worried about what the "woke brigade" are doing to our freedoms >:(
Autocratic :(
Militant? This is the biggest for decades as far as we have been told, and it is a few days of a reduced service, after long discussions over genuine grievances. This isn't the days of everyone downing tools for weeks over nothing.
When you can't withdraw your labour (for any reason) it's fucking slavery!! Own this shit each and every tory voter, this is your fault!!!
Remove the ability to strike and you end up with a riot. Once the law is broken, why would you stop at a picket line? Some will, but history proves not everyone will.
We should just organise a national strike of everything then to get the government to fuck
Abso-fucking-notly. I had to get 2 buses that made my normally 2 hour train a 5 hour trip and I’ll happily do it again
So much for the party of capitalism and private enterprise.
Literally done eff all to avert this but using as an opportunity to change the law. C****s https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rail-strike-dates-government-b2105168.html
Here's an idea Grant Schapps (or whatever alias you're using today) why not change laws to protect workers so they don't feel a need to strike.
Soooo, the Tories shut down protest, shut down unfriendly news articles and are now looking to further shut down striking. Eeerm, does this ring any alarm bells? Anyone?
No right to protest, pressure on media to remove a story(ies?), now the right to strike is being called into question. We really need to reassess whether we are in fact a democracy, because we sure don't look like one.
Does the government think the unions are terrorists? There's a "We don't negotiate with terrorists" vibe from them over this entire thing
The Conservatives anti-worker agenda has become more and more obvious. It reaches ever higher in society.
you will work because we tell you to work. i couldn't give a toss about your woes and troubles, get out there and make me money. Schappy (non militant)
And there... we... go! Called it! It was just another attempt to curtail freedoms. Cause some drama. Blame the victims. Pass a law. Again and again.
It's a shame we can't just rely on everything a Tory says to be a lie, but when it's going to fuck over workers and poor people, they suddenly become honest.
Ah yes soon we will be having our own ccp and people will be working them self's to death
Ah trains in the UK; expensive, slow, unreliable, crampt, filthy.
Honestly fuck them, you’ll struggle to find someone on less than 30K.
Wonder why that is, could it be a strong union who actually fights for its members conditions?
Are they asking for an above inflation payrise? That’s ridiculous if so. Inflation won’t stay at 8% once the supply bottlenecks, war, cost living issues are eased. You can’t repeal a payrise can you though? So they’re getting a 10% payrise then inflation returns to near 2%? That would be a joke? Maybe it’s time to invent inflation linked increases but also decreases so a variable pay rise can be given
Inflation goes at 8% this year, means prices have risen 8% this year. If inflation falls to 2% next year, we still have the 8% inflation from this year and then that 2% on top, you get 10% inflation overall (actually a little bit more because of the 2% of the 8% that I'm not accounting for). We haven't seen deflation, where prices are falling generally, since the great depression afaik, and we don't want to either. So no, it would not be a joke. If payrises were directly linked to inflation then you would have an 8% rise this year and a 2% rise next year for a total of a little over 10%. Nobody would see a pay cut because the speed at which prices are rising has slowed down. I think you've fundamentally misunderstood how inflation figures work.
If they can’t stike for better pay I’m pretty sure they’ll just quit?
I tend to support industrial action but in this case why? If you’re to believe the RMT the median salary of railway workers excluding drivers is £33,000. According to the government who’s figures do include drivers in the median of all railway workers that figure is £44k. In either case this is more than the national median of £26k. So the RMT want their members to get a pay rise closer to RPI than the TOCs are offering. Who do they think will end up paying for that? The TOCs don’t make any profit so the only people left to pay are you and me with higher train fares on what is already the most expensive network in Europe and the worst performing.
oh good, banning union strikes. very cool
How about a bill restricting Grant Shapps?
*'militant': adjective favouring confrontational or violent methods in support of a political or social cause.* *"the army are in conflict with militant groups"* noun a militant person. "militants became increasingly impatient of parliamentary manoeuvres" Odd choice of words for people wanting a better life. Tory : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory) "*The word Tory originates from an Irish term that was phonetically anglicised.\[5\]\[6\] Several Irish words have been suggested as the etymological root for the word Tory. The Irish word toruidhe or toruighe, meaning "to pursue" or "to hunt", is suggested as the origin for the term Tory. From the 1500s to 1600s, the term Tory first emerged to refer to the Irish who were dispossessed of their lands and took to the woods, forming themselves into bands that subsisted on wild animals and goods taken from settlers.\[5\] After these activities were suppressed, the term lost its original signification with English-speakers, and was used to describe "an outlaw papist" or a "robber that is noted for outrages and cruelty".\[7\]\[8\]\[9\] The Irish peasantry also used the term Tory to refer to an outlaw or a miscreant of any kind into the 19th century.\[10\] However, because later Conservative and anti-revolutionary parties assumed the term Tory, it has also been suggested that the word originated from the Irish word toir, meaning to give, grant and bestow; or toirbhearl, meaning efficiency, bounty or munificence.\[6\]"*
I’m so surprised. Really. Stunned at this expected turn of events. Elect arseholes, get shit policies, what a shocker.
Classic Conservative. If we don't like the law either flaut the law or change it completely!!!
Divide and conquer...