tube strike and numpy cyclists

Harry B · June 2009

Porgy HOW WAS THE ANARCHISTS BOOK FAIR?

Porgy · June 2009

Greg66 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

[
Those are examples of people being employed to undertake specific tasks. You're talking about retaining every public sector employee in their existing role, whether or not fulfilling that role would help pull the economy out of recession.

Nope - I'm not and neither are the RMT - Bob Crowe was quoted on the radio yesterday saying he'd welcome re-training for displaced staff.

Headhuunter · June 2009

Porgy wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

[I don't know what yuo do, but it sounds like you are a qualified engineer. If so, there are surely hundreds of ethically concerned companies that are crying out for skilled help. If you're concerned about transport, there are plenty of transport consultancies which need engineering skills. You could even go overseas, I have a friend whose husband is an engineer with the UN in Africa providing much needed transportation advice in far worse of countries than the UK.

If yuo have studied for many years to qualify in something specialist, you have a very serious skill to offer, either for money or for the general good. Stop p*ssing it away at LU. You yourself claimed that many engineers left LU to larger firms like BT, so there is obviously a market for you out there. If the LU doesn't appreciate you, don't fight it, get out and go somewhere they will treat you with respect.

nah - you're alright. 8)

So the truth comes out. It's the money thinly veneered in "concern" about public safety and standards at LU.

Porgy · June 2009

Harry B wrote:

Porgy HOW WAS THE ANARCHISTS BOOK FAIR?

What does the Daily Mail say about it?

biondino · June 2009

There's a lot of ignorant right-wing nonsense being spouted here (not everyone - Headhuunter in particular is debating honestly and reasonably) but what's most worrying is the seeming acceptance of most of the younger posters that unions = bad and any disruption to you, everyman's, daily life is akin to human sacrifice.

Unions are good. Unions have, for decades, provided vital and unique bastions of strength for the workers against the capitalists and oligarchs and governments who would oppress them. Much of the benefits we all enjoy are the result of unionised labour deciding it didn't want to be pushed around any more. More than that, the reason most of us don't have unions these days is likely because unions and labour movements of the past improved working conditions to the point where the unions themselves seems superfluous and, that most insulting of phrases, "outdated", despite that irony that most of them define themselves with the word "conservative"!

I don't fully understand the reason for this strike, but by god the fact that they have the RIGHT to strike is something which we, as civilised people, should be proud of. Each and every one of us, from harry B's ridiculous Daily Mail nonsense to the most hardened Stalinist (I'm guessing kieran_burns), is wildly overprivileged with a sense of entitlement that must have our grandparents rolling in their graves.

Get over yourselves, people, figure out what's worth railing against in this country. Odds are the rights of the working man ain't it.

Soul Boy · June 2009

Can't believe this is still going, and Porgy is still defending the strike all by himself (how many times have you left this thread?)

Would make good reading, if I could just keep up...

I'm of the opinon that opening the barriers and refusing to accept fares as the best way to get at management, but what do I know, it seems nobody is getting the full story.

biondino · June 2009

Harry B wrote:

Porgy HOW WAS THE ANARCHISTS BOOK FAIR?

Ad hominem attacks on other site users is likely to get you reported to the site admin.

Kieran_Burns · June 2009

I'd just ike to point out that this (while heated by BR standards) is nothing compared to a Forum I moderate on... the number of inflammatory posts that need to be removed / edited is unreal.

This is quite astonishingly polite by the standards I'm used to!

Porgy · June 2009

Headhuunter wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

[I don't know what yuo do, but it sounds like you are a qualified engineer. If so, there are surely hundreds of ethically concerned companies that are crying out for skilled help. If you're concerned about transport, there are plenty of transport consultancies which need engineering skills. You could even go overseas, I have a friend whose husband is an engineer with the UN in Africa providing much needed transportation advice in far worse of countries than the UK.

If yuo have studied for many years to qualify in something specialist, you have a very serious skill to offer, either for money or for the general good. Stop p*ssing it away at LU. You yourself claimed that many engineers left LU to larger firms like BT, so there is obviously a market for you out there. If the LU doesn't appreciate you, don't fight it, get out and go somewhere they will treat you with respect.

nah - you're alright. 8)

So the truth comes out. It's the money thinly veneered in "concern" about public safety and standards at LU.

how did you come up with that?

According to you caring about London Transport is like p*ssing my life away.

Well pardon me for not agreeing with you matey. I happen to think London transport is important. We can all go off and do good work in Afirca and come back with a warm glow inside, but this is my country, and my grand-kids will be living here, and i want this city to have a damned good transport system.

sod you! :twisted:

Headhuunter · June 2009

Porgy wrote:

Gazzaputt wrote:

At least they're standing up for their rights.

The reason that fat cats shite on the lowly worker is because of the eradication of the unions and people standing up for a decent working standard.

It shouldn't be acceptable in any sector or industry that bonuses are paid the exec whilst the worker is laid off.

Lloyds shutting C&G is a prime example it shouldn't be accepted just because we're in a recession caused by the sodding hierarchy of the banking system. It'll be people like us laid off and worrying how to pay the mortgage.

I was baffled that some seemed to think laying off public workers would help the recession - most likely would help deepen it.

What's the point of keeping every branch of C&G open when there's very likely a Lloyds TSB and/or an HBOS just down the road? Keeping 3 branches of the same shop/bank open on the same street is more likely to bring the whole company down in the face of competition. Making redundancies is regrettable but necessary. In the public sector, unfortunately there are no market forces restricting excess, resulting in things like this strike.

il_principe · June 2009

Greg66 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

It is essential that ALL public sector workers are kept on during a recession. Laying off public sector workers will save us nothing in the long term.

Wooaahhhh! :shock:

The seventies called to say they'd like their crazy working attitudes back.

I suppose paying public sector to turn up and do nothing (if, in fact, there is nothing for them to do) is another sacred cow.

do you really think that LU is overstaffed? It has never been overstaffed - and isn't now.

Have you not read about the New Deal - and how empoying vast numbers of people to carry out important public works pulled US and the world out of the 30's depression?

Or is economics of the 80s and 90s much better option - three recessions in less than 30 years. I guess unregulated capitalism doesn't work too well does it?

Those are examples of people being employed to undertake specific tasks. You're talking about retaining every public sector employee in their existing role, whether or not fulfilling that role would help pull the economy out of recession.

[As you may have guessed, I don't accept the premise that every public sector employee's continued discharge of their pre-recession role is essential to pull an economy out of a recession.

Embarking on large capex publicly funded jobs to stimulate the economy is one thing - but even then, although the funding may be public money, the workers may be private contractors. Giving all public sector employees sinecures is quite another.

No idea how we'd pay for them all anyway!

rhext · June 2009

Porgy wrote:

rhext wrote:

Porgy wrote:

I'm not having a go, and I don't question the union's right (indeed duty) to demand good things for it's members. It's just it seems to me that the decision to take that argument all the way to a strike is a little insensitive in the current climate.

I'm not defending the strike anymore - too dengerous, i'm just defending tube workers in general

Then we agree!

Don't leave the forum b.t.w. Without people to present potentially unpopular arguments it'd be a very very boring place.

Do you think the tube thing has run its course now? It's just I'd like to have a stab at defending MP's allowances!

Harry B · June 2009

biondino wrote:

Harry B wrote:

Porgy HOW WAS THE ANARCHISTS BOOK FAIR?

Ad hominem attacks on other site users is likely to get you reported to the site admin.

The information is publically available on his blog.

Headhuunter · June 2009

Porgy wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

[I don't know what yuo do, but it sounds like you are a qualified engineer. If so, there are surely hundreds of ethically concerned companies that are crying out for skilled help. If you're concerned about transport, there are plenty of transport consultancies which need engineering skills. You could even go overseas, I have a friend whose husband is an engineer with the UN in Africa providing much needed transportation advice in far worse of countries than the UK.

If yuo have studied for many years to qualify in something specialist, you have a very serious skill to offer, either for money or for the general good. Stop p*ssing it away at LU. You yourself claimed that many engineers left LU to larger firms like BT, so there is obviously a market for you out there. If the LU doesn't appreciate you, don't fight it, get out and go somewhere they will treat you with respect.

nah - you're alright. 8)

So the truth comes out. It's the money thinly veneered in "concern" about public safety and standards at LU.

how did you come up with that?

According to you caring about London Transport is like p*ssing my life away.

Well pardon me for not agreeing with you matey. I happen to think London transport is important. We can all go off and do good work in Afirca and come back with a warm glow inside, but this is my country, and my grand-kids will be living here, and i want this city to have a damned good transport system.

sod you! :twisted:

So you would happily continue working for LU/The Tube on your current salary and benfits if some guarantees were made about safety, updating signalling etc etc? Yeah right.... It's a thin veneer which everyone can see through I'm afraid....

Porgy · June 2009

jashburnham wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

It is essential that ALL public sector workers are kept on during a recession. Laying off public sector workers will save us nothing in the long term.

Wooaahhhh! :shock:

The seventies called to say they'd like their crazy working attitudes back.

I suppose paying public sector to turn up and do nothing (if, in fact, there is nothing for them to do) is another sacred cow.

do you really think that LU is overstaffed? It has never been overstaffed - and isn't now.

Have you not read about the New Deal - and how empoying vast numbers of people to carry out important public works pulled US and the world out of the 30's depression?

Or is economics of the 80s and 90s much better option - three recessions in less than 30 years. I guess unregulated capitalism doesn't work too well does it?

Those are examples of people being employed to undertake specific tasks. You're talking about retaining every public sector employee in their existing role, whether or not fulfilling that role would help pull the economy out of recession.

[As you may have guessed, I don't accept the premise that every public sector employee's continued discharge of their pre-recession role is essential to pull an economy out of a recession.

Embarking on large capex publicly funded jobs to stimulate the economy is one thing - but even then, although the funding may be public money, the workers may be private contractors. Giving all public sector employees sinecures is quite another.

No idea how we'd pay for them all anyway!

i've no idea how we gave all that money to the banks, can continue to fund fighting in afghanistan, and still intend to introduce the DNA database.

But there does appear to be a lot of money about still - the tube will only need a tiny fraction of what we gave the banks.

biondino · June 2009

Harry B wrote:

biondino wrote:

Harry B wrote:

Porgy HOW WAS THE ANARCHISTS BOOK FAIR?

Ad hominem attacks on other site users is likely to get you reported to the site admin.

The information is publically available on his blog.

Which gives you the right to be a d!ck about it? Albeit in a snide, insinuating, cowardly way. Do you actually work for the Mail or is it just a coincidence?

Jamey · June 2009

I think most people know that not all unions are bad, but Bob Crowe and the RMT aren't just any union.

I think most people have now realised that Porgy isn't a driver and isn't on strike but he could have said this at the beginning of his involvement in the thread as I'm sure he must have known the sort of conclusions people would jump to.

il_principe · June 2009

Porgy wrote:

i've no idea how we gave all that money to the banks, can continue to fund fighting in afghanistan, and still intend to introduce the DNA database.

But there does appear to be a lot of money about still - the tube will only need a tiny fraction of what we gave the banks.

It's money we don't have.

National debt: Taken from public sector net debt figures (PSND) in Table C4 of Budget 2009. PSND rising from £609.1 billion on 5 April 2009 to £792 billion a year later. This is the most conservative of the available debt indices as it excludes liabilities for PFI deals, public sector pensions and bank bailouts.

Family share: Calculated by dividing the national debt figure by the number of households in the UK. Number of households taken as 25.7 million, as per the written answer to a Parliamentary question in March 2009.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3564956/the-coffee-house-debt-counter-information-and-sources.thtml

Porgy · June 2009

Headhuunter wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

[I don't know what yuo do, but it sounds like you are a qualified engineer. If so, there are surely hundreds of ethically concerned companies that are crying out for skilled help. If you're concerned about transport, there are plenty of transport consultancies which need engineering skills. You could even go overseas, I have a friend whose husband is an engineer with the UN in Africa providing much needed transportation advice in far worse of countries than the UK.

If yuo have studied for many years to qualify in something specialist, you have a very serious skill to offer, either for money or for the general good. Stop p*ssing it away at LU. You yourself claimed that many engineers left LU to larger firms like BT, so there is obviously a market for you out there. If the LU doesn't appreciate you, don't fight it, get out and go somewhere they will treat you with respect.

nah - you're alright. 8)

So the truth comes out. It's the money thinly veneered in "concern" about public safety and standards at LU.

how did you come up with that?

According to you caring about London Transport is like p*ssing my life away.

Well pardon me for not agreeing with you matey. I happen to think London transport is important. We can all go off and do good work in Afirca and come back with a warm glow inside, but this is my country, and my grand-kids will be living here, and i want this city to have a damned good transport system.

sod you! :twisted:

So you would happily continue working for LU/The Tube on your current salary and benfits if some guarantees were made about safety, updating signalling etc etc? Yeah right.... It's a thin veneer which everyone can see through I'm afraid....

well i've been here 25 years - and as you said - i could take my engineering skills virtually anywhere.

I guess I'm not allowed to have a different view to you then.

Oh dear :roll:

Gazzaputt · June 2009

Headhuunter wrote:

Porgy wrote:

Gazzaputt wrote:

At least they're standing up for their rights.

The reason that fat cats shite on the lowly worker is because of the eradication of the unions and people standing up for a decent working standard.

It shouldn't be acceptable in any sector or industry that bonuses are paid the exec whilst the worker is laid off.

Lloyds shutting C&G is a prime example it shouldn't be accepted just because we're in a recession caused by the sodding hierarchy of the banking system. It'll be people like us laid off and worrying how to pay the mortgage.

I was baffled that some seemed to think laying off public workers would help the recession - most likely would help deepen it.

What's the point of keeping every branch of C&G open when there's very likely a Lloyds TSB and/or an HBOS just down the road? Keeping 3 branches of the same shop/bank open on the same street is more likely to bring the whole company down in the face of competition. Making redundancies is regrettable but necessary. In the public sector, unfortunately there are no market forces restricting excess, resulting in things like this strike.

There's the 'I'm alight jack' attitude that does well for this country. If it was your job on the line would you readily accept it as you have stated as being necessary?

Porgy · June 2009

This is all becoming a bit personal now guys. I feel a bit like the man who was asked when he stopped beating his wife.

Jamey · June 2009

Sitting in a job and striking to get more pay is a lot more 'cosy' then trying to find another job though, isn't it.

But it's not very popular so best to have some sort of cover story about how a big nasty accident is just waiting to happen and you're saving us all from danger. Or you could claim how passionate you are about public transport in London... Hahahahaha.

Porgy · June 2009

Headhuunter wrote:

What's the point of keeping every branch of C&G open when there's very likely a Lloyds TSB and/or an HBOS just down the road? Keeping 3 branches of the same shop/bank open on the same street is more likely to bring the whole company down in the face of competition. Making redundancies is regrettable but necessary. In the public sector, unfortunately there are no market forces restricting excess, resulting in things like this strike.

Yeah - in London there's loads of tube stations - why don't we close half of them down?

We could run less trains too. I'm sure that would help the economy.

il_principe · June 2009

biondino wrote:

There's a lot of ignorant right-wing nonsense being spouted here (not everyone - Headhuunter in particular is debating honestly and reasonably) but what's most worrying is the seeming acceptance of most of the younger posters that unions = bad and any disruption to you, everyman's, daily life is akin to human sacrifice.

Unions are good. Unions have, for decades, provided vital and unique bastions of strength for the workers against the capitalists and oligarchs and governments who would oppress them. Much of the benefits we all enjoy are the result of unionised labour deciding it didn't want to be pushed around any more. More than that, the reason most of us don't have unions these days is likely because unions and labour movements of the past improved working conditions to the point where the unions themselves seems superfluous and, that most insulting of phrases, "outdated", despite that irony that most of them define themselves with the word "conservative"!

I don't fully understand the reason for this strike, but by god the fact that they have the RIGHT to strike is something which we, as civilised people, should be proud of. Each and every one of us, from harry B's ridiculous Daily Mail nonsense to the most hardened Stalinist (I'm guessing kieran_burns), is wildly overprivileged with a sense of entitlement that must have our grandparents rolling in their graves.

Get over yourselves, people, figure out what's worth railing against in this country. Odds are the rights of the working man ain't it.

Mmm, I'm sure most of us here aren't against unions per se, but as Greg points out there is a real whiff of the 1970's about Crow and the RMT, and it is their timing which has really annoyed people this time round.

Jamey · June 2009

Porgy (in response to Cheltenham & Gloucester closing branches) wrote:

Yeah - in London there's loads of tube stations - why don't we close half of them down?

Because you can't travel online, but you can do your banking online.

One is a physical/logistical service, the other is increasingly a virtual/digital service. Guess which one needs less bricks and mortar, Einstein.

Porgy · June 2009

Jamey wrote:

Sitting in a job and striking to get more pay is a lot more 'cosy' then trying to find another job though, isn't it.

But it's not very popular so best to have some sort of cover story about how a big nasty accident is just waiting to happen and you're saving us all from danger. Or you could claim how passionate you are about public transport in London... Hahahahaha.

i shouldn't rise to this, but are you about 12? Or just the biggest F.uck.wit ever.

I've never heard of someone sceptical about train crashes before. Do you think that running 32 trains or so an hour, all full of people, at up to 70 mph in a tunnel on an hourly basis is not just potentially dangerous. Or what did you think signals were for.

Harry B · June 2009

biondino wrote:

Harry B wrote:

biondino wrote:

Harry B wrote:

Porgy HOW WAS THE ANARCHISTS BOOK FAIR?

Ad hominem attacks on other site users is likely to get you reported to the site admin.

The information is publically available on his blog.

Which gives you the right to be a d!ck about it? Albeit in a snide, insinuating, cowardly way. Do you actually work for the Mail or is it just a coincidence?

No but it gives me the right to question the motives behind his views. There's nothing insinuating about it. And no I don't work for or read the Mail but I am entilted to research things before making comments or coming to an opinion. Perhap you might like to do the same!

Christophe3967 · June 2009

Porgy wrote:

Greg66 wrote:

Porgy wrote:

It is essential that ALL public sector workers are kept on during a recession. Laying off public sector workers will save us nothing in the long term.

Wooaahhhh! :shock:

The seventies called to say they'd like their crazy working attitudes back.

I suppose paying public sector to turn up and do nothing (if, in fact, there is nothing for them to do) is another sacred cow.

do you really think that LU is overstaffed? It has never been overstaffed - and isn't now.

Have you not read about the New Deal - and how empoying vast numbers of people to carry out important public works pulled US and the world out of the 30's depression?

Or is economics of the 80s and 90s much better option - three recessions in less than 30 years. I guess unregulated capitalism doesn't work too well does it?

Right. Come back,

all is forgiven...

The New Deal was not the universal success that many argue it was. Like most things, there were good and bad aspects. The good stuff, like constructing a basic social safety net, made sense on their own terms and would have been desirable in the boom years of the 1920s as well. The bad policies made things worse. Roosevelt instituted a disastrous legacy of agricultural subsidies and sought to force industry into cartels, backed by force of law. Neither policy, it might be argued, helped the economy recover.

The US government also took steps to strengthen unions and to keep real wages high. This helped workers who had jobs, but made it much harder for the unemployed to get back to work. As a result unemployment rates remained high throughout the New Deal period.

The New Deal’s legacy of public works programs has given many people the impression that it was a time of expansionary fiscal policy, but that isn’t quite right. Government spending went up considerably, but taxes rose, too. Under Hoover and continuing with Roosevelt, the US government increased income taxes, excise taxes, inheritance taxes, corporate income taxes, holding company taxes and “excess profits” taxes. None of this did anything to help that recovery.

In essence, expansionary monetary policy and wartime orders from Europe, not the well-known policies of the New Deal, did the most to make the American economy climb out of the Depression. Our current downturn will end as well someday, and, as in the ’30s, the recovery will probably come for reasons that have little to do with most policy initiatives.

By all means lets deal with the banks and insurers, but that doesn't mean that capitalisim isn't working - interference from financial regulators (and governments on both sides of the Atlantic) has been responsible, e.g. the Clinton government's restriction on "red lining". So please lets restrict extraordinary measures to the financial sector as much as possible and resist the temptation to “do something” for its own sake.

Porgy · June 2009

Harry B wrote:

biondino wrote:

Harry B wrote:

biondino wrote:

Harry B wrote:

Porgy HOW WAS THE ANARCHISTS BOOK FAIR?

Ad hominem attacks on other site users is likely to get you reported to the site admin.

The information is publically available on his blog.

Which gives you the right to be a d!ck about it? Albeit in a snide, insinuating, cowardly way. Do you actually work for the Mail or is it just a coincidence?

No but it gives me the right to question the motives behind his views. There's nothing insinuating about it. And no I don't work for or read the Mail but I am entilted to research things before making comments or coming to an opinion. Perhap you might like to do the same!

what are my motives then matey?

Jamey · June 2009

Porgy wrote:

i shouldn't rise to this, but are you about 12? Or just the biggest F.uck.wit ever.

I've never heard of someone sceptical about train crashes before. Do you think that running 32 trains or so an hour, all full of people, at up to 70 mph in a tunnel on an hourly basis is not just potentially dangerous. Or what did you think signals were for.

So all those strikes are just about our safety, are they? You really, really care about us a lot?

Aww... thanks.

Oh, but hang on... There's nothing on RMT's website about safety today, just loads of stuff about pay and unsackability... Strange that you should keep wheeling out the safety card as an excuse then, isn't it?

tube strike and numpy cyclists

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