Right you lot.
First off TRAIN DRIVERS ARE NOT STRIKING
So take out their pay.
BBC gets the median at £37,500
RMT puts it at £33,00
Secondly, WHO GIVES A HOOT?
Let them strike.
They get £70 per day striking, if they want months of industrial action, with inflation, they’ll soon be back working on the same pay to keep a roof over their heads.
There are 2,000 voluntary redundancies up for grabs.
4,200 applied. So that’s not an argument.
Getting the train is now a choice for most people.
Oh, there’s a strike on - I’ll WFH that week. No biggie.
Or, you drive.
I’ve cycled on main A roads (A49, A56, A51) into and out of Chester at rush hour this morning. It was dead. Nobody was driving.
I cycled over the M6/M56 numerous times, too - way quieter than a Friday morning or afternoon.
Bear with me on this one…
Office drones stop getting the train into work
They don’t spend money at Pret for lunch
Pret lay people off (redundancies!
Those unemployed workers don’t spend money
The workers not commuting aren’t buying tickets or lunch out - not spending money
Train people keep striking, people keep not going to work and casual workers supporting offices and their workers have their hours reduced or are laid off
This is exactly what we need to stop inflation.
Increased unemployment (about 5% we need to bring inflation back to 3%) will also hold interest rates steady.
Which is why the government aren’t doing much.
The rail workers have created a perfect plan to get the economy back on track by October
It’s not just that, it’s about reducing spending power to reign in inflation.
If people see other being made redundant, or having their hours reduced, they may make choices to save, rather than spend. (And then we see falling interest rates to get people to spend their savings to bring inflation up again)
People love capitalism when it works.
But absolutely hate it when it doesn’t.
I get that and I think around here we’re pretty much all the same. My added comments about setting a precedent for other sectors is my main reason for supporting the strike. Everyone should live within their means and be realistic but when you start looking wider (teachers, nurses etc) there are a lot of people who really are struggling these days through no fault of their own.
Yes, completely agree and with inflation it’s dragging a lot more people into that struggling zone who were probably being frugal already.
Especially as you say they are unlikely to get any reasonable increase in their current job. I think of the people at the Uni on say scale 5. 5-10 years ago it wasn’t bad when you factored in the pension and holidays. It must be a bit of a struggle now.
I suspect most of us here will be able to cope but might think twice about that Ironman or cut down on the trips to costa!
There’s also an interesting irony that the same mindset that promotes a motivation to investors and business leaders to maximise income at every opportunity, is so upset at a workforce looking to do exactly the same.
No. Because there’s a history of RMT members being bullied into strike action by union reps, or, being bullied after not taking strike action.
Also, on another point.
The whole spiel RMT members are saying about they’re asking for a pay rise to cope with inflation…erm…hasn’t that only just happened in the past two months?
How many RMT members are striking?
They get £70 per day.
And the RMT says it has the funds for this to go on for months.
Just how long did that war chest take to build?
I’m sorry, but something doesn’t wash with me.
Finally, RMT are only striking about redundancies (see my earlier comment) and pay.
Not working conditions or pensions.
Buying a takeaway coffee from the big chains is pretty pricey these days! Many office workers actually spend quite a lot on lunches from what I’ve seen; a very easy way to cut costs - make your own sandwiches & hot drinks!
