Bob crow based noddergedon is coming - BOB CROW DIES

il_principe

Southgate wrote:

A human being should be on duty at every station to help passengers (especially the elderly, children, and tourists).

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Like they actually do. My wife can't use our local tube station with the buggy. She tried once, had to get a member of public to help her carry the buggy up the stairs, the tube staff flatly refused to help.

RMT have been too greedy for too long.

awavey

what Ive never really understood is the DLR,Overground & even the suburban londonshire train stations often rarely have any staff in attendance at night and Ive found myself sometimes through my own mistakes, sometimes through others stranded at stations several times over the years and there have never been any staff around to help or assist us get to where we needed.

so why is the tube treated differently. the deep tube yes can understand the need for staffing, but those will be staying I thought. I mean compared to Germany/France where you hardly see any staff or often barriers for that matter just seems odd.

never mind wont affect me for the next few days, hope more people see it isnt as scary as they think and pick up bikes as a result

jds_1981

Il Principe wrote:

Southgate wrote:

A human being should be on duty at every station to help passengers (especially the elderly, children, and tourists).

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Like they actually do. My wife can't use our local tube station with the buggy. She tried once, had to get a member of public to help her carry the buggy up the stairs, the tube staff flatly refused to help.

RMT have been too greedy for too long.

And my wife, her buggy down the stairs..

jds_1981

anonymousblackfg wrote:

A little bit of my joy in cycle commuting is knowing that neither Bob Crow or Boris is getting my hard earned cash.

Technically, tfl gets large government grants for running - 630 million for the 2015 to 2016 period + 925 million investment grant.

roger_merriman

jds_1981 wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

Southgate wrote:

A human being should be on duty at every station to help passengers (especially the elderly, children, and tourists).

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Like they actually do. My wife can't use our local tube station with the buggy. She tried once, had to get a member of public to help her carry the buggy up the stairs, the tube staff flatly refused to help.

RMT have been too greedy for too long.

And my wife, her buggy down the stairs..

I've been asked a number of times now on the trains even in my enfeebled state.

jds_1981

Southgate wrote:

Boris reneged on his promises.

As I understand it, that was a previous manifesto, not the one he was elected on?

rjsterry

Intrigued by this figure of £200million that is being lost to the economy. It has the feel of something plucked out of the air.

fat_tail

rjsterry wrote:

Intrigued by this figure of £200million that is being lost to the economy. It has the feel of something plucked out of the air.

I am pretty sure it is an understatement... look at the chaos out there this morning. Half my office is absent. So if you think companies can operate on half their staff, then Bob Crowe has done for the private sector precisely what he has been fighting against in the public sector which is increased productivity.

anonymousblackfg

There are 6m workers in london,

Average wage is 21k (defo not in london) your cost to your employer is roughly 3 times this so

6m * 3 * 21k = 378,000m

Diveide that by the productive days in a year, say 220 = £1.7bn per day cost of the lonson work force,

Let's say 15% don't make it in... that's over £250m

The nice thing is, now the next tory mayoral candidate will say i'll fund the automation of the tubes and they'll certainly get in, whether he's killed cyclists of stuck his c*ck in other peoples wives.

menthel

I didn't cycle in today but walking from Vauxhall to Victoria there were a hell of a lot of people out on bikes and also walking. Looks like most people were just getting on with it. A big FU to Bob Crowe and a deserved one at that. The transport system needs to modernise and if that means loosing ticket offices and staff then so be it. The fares go up every year yet often the service stands still or takes a step back.

notsoblue

menthel wrote:

The fares go up every year yet often the service stands still or takes a step back.

How is this Bob Crow's fault?

Car traffic was mental this morning just before 9. Didn't see many more cyclists, but then it was pretty late.

jzed

Southgate wrote:

Public Transport in London is not fit for purpose, and that's the fault of decades of underfunding, complacency, and a lack of vision about what a modern capital city should be. Cutting staff only makes it worse not better.

I suppose if the tube drivers weren't paid more than police, firemen/women, prison officers, teachers, there might had been a bit more money in the pot to improve the service.

A modern capital city - that should be driverless trains.

menthel

notsoblue wrote:

menthel wrote:

The fares go up every year yet often the service stands still or takes a step back.

How is this Bob Crow's fault?

Car traffic was mental this morning just before 9. Didn't see many more cyclists, but then it was pretty late.

Because he is a self-aggrandising, attention seeking twunt. I also think that the Unions really need to understand that people just don't support their need to tread water and not modernise. Being a civil servant I have seen a lot of changes and had realistically a wage drop over the past couple of years but we just have to get on with it and recognise that the world is changing.

As for the tube service- there are changes happening slowly but surely. We have new trains, station refurbs and new escalators going it. However, this is done on the background of a very old system and one that was not designed to take the massive numbers it now does. Not only that because of the city and its underlying geology it would be difficult to expand the system without prohibitive cost. London is a tricky city to live in but our public transport system is actually not that bad when you consider the old, organic city it has to run through.

notsoblue

Criticising Bob Crow for being "self-aggrandising" or "attention seeking" doesn't actually answer my question though, does it? Crow is protecting the interests of his union, I'm not sure what else you'd expect him to do.

The reason why union relations involve so much brinkmanship these days is probably because businesses usually have a pretty rubbish relationship with their workforce. I'd like to see that improve so unions won't need stubborn pugilists like Bob Crow to get anything done.

As a side note, its funny that its usually the same people that complain so much about customer service that are so hysterically against any kind of worker representation.

rick_chasey

Must say, experiencing some strong schadenfreude looking at a the twitter pictures of huge crowds at tube stations.

TheStone

Carnage out there today.

I hate bob crow and the rmt as every time they go on strike they pretend it's about something serious, but somehow walk away with more money.

I hate boris too.

This country's run by idiots.

roger_merriman

notsoblue wrote:

menthel wrote:

The fares go up every year yet often the service stands still or takes a step back.

How is this Bob Crow's fault?.

He does have a image problem in that he sounds like something out of the late 70's.

Don't get me wrong having staff about to deal with faulty Oyster cards, or help in someway is a good thing but ticket offices are fairly pointless.

Does show London centric this part of the forum is, for a vaste number of the population the tube is a irrelivence and probably aren't even aware there is a strike on.

talius

roger merriman wrote:

Does show London centric this part of the forum is, for a vaste number of the population the tube is a irrelivence and probably aren't even aware there is a strike on.

Think that's just how London-centric commuting is, not Bikeradar as a whole.

rjsterry

anonymousblackfg wrote:

There are 6m workers in london,

Average wage is 21k (defo not in london) your cost to your employer is roughly 3 times this so

6m * 3 * 21k = 378,000m

Diveide that by the productive days in a year, say 220 = £1.7bn per day cost of the lonson work force,

Let's say 15% don't make it in... that's over £250m

The nice thing is, now the next tory mayoral candidate will say i'll fund the automation of the tubes and they'll certainly get in, whether he's killed cyclists of stuck his c*ck in other peoples wives.

It's easy to come up with a calculation that gives the answer of ~£200million; I think it's more likely that someone was charged with coming up with a figure that was high enough to sound impressive, but not too high as to sound unbelieveable.

Quite a good piece on the strike by Simon Jenkins in the Standard last night: in short, Crow is just doing his job, and if Johnson and Livingston before him didn't keep giving concessions (i.e. called RMT's bluff) then there might be fewer strikes. So far they've managed to wangle extra pay for working as normal over the Olympics, extra pay for working Boxing Day when this was already in their contracts, all on top of a pretty comfy basic salary.

Anyway, traffic was horrific - bumper to bumper from Tooting into Farringdon, and some pretty crap cycling by those electing for pedal power. So much undertaking, especially of vehicles turning left out the queues. Almost wish it had been pissing down to thin them out a bit.

fat_tail

rjsterry wrote:

anonymousblackfg wrote:

There are 6m workers in london,

Average wage is 21k (defo not in london) your cost to your employer is roughly 3 times this so

6m * 3 * 21k = 378,000m

Diveide that by the productive days in a year, say 220 = £1.7bn per day cost of the lonson work force,

Let's say 15% don't make it in... that's over £250m

The nice thing is, now the next tory mayoral candidate will say i'll fund the automation of the tubes and they'll certainly get in, whether he's killed cyclists of stuck his c*ck in other peoples wives.

It's easy to come up with a calculation that gives the answer of ~£200million; I think it's more likely that someone was charged with coming up with a figure that was high enough to sound impressive, but not too high as to sound unbelieveable.

Quite a good piece on the strike by Simon Jenkins in the Standard last night: in short, Crow is just doing his job, and if Johnson and Livingston before him didn't keep giving concessions (i.e. called RMT's bluff) then there might be fewer strikes. So far they've managed to wangle extra pay for working as normal over the Olympics, extra pay for working Boxing Day when this was already in their contracts, all on top of a pretty comfy basic salary.

Anyway, traffic was horrific - bumper to bumper from Tooting into Farringdon, and some pretty crap cycling by those electing for pedal power. So much undertaking, especially of vehicles turning left out the queues. Almost wish it had been pissing down to thin them out a bit.

London is an attractive city for investment for many reasons - however, episodes like this do not help at all and the cost to the UK will be much more than £200 million if the investment inflow slows down.

On the bright side, Pizza Express is offering 40% off your food bill today and tomorrow at select central London restaurants.

menthel

notsoblue wrote:

Criticising Bob Crow for being "self-aggrandising" or "attention seeking" doesn't actually answer my question though, does it? Crow is protecting the interests of his union, I'm not sure what else you'd expect him to do.

The reason why union relations involve so much brinkmanship these days is probably because businesses usually have a pretty rubbish relationship with their workforce. I'd like to see that improve so unions won't need stubborn pugilists like Bob Crow to get anything done.

As a side note, its funny that its usually the same people that complain so much about customer service that are so hysterically against any kind of worker representation.

Lets just say I am not convinced that he does do what is good for his Union. He certainly doesn't care about the general public whom his members serve.

vimfuego

A few more nodders out on CS7 this morning, better than them all being in cars though (and there were plenty of them too).

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/soci ... 1011303299

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/soci ... 4020583280

An RMT "protest" or something also going on at E&C Tube station - loads of signs anyway. They didn't seem to get much support though, mainly just "hand signals" from passing motorists, cyclists, peds etc (at least we can all unite on something ;-)

rolf_f

Didn't seem to have any effect on traffic levels in Leeds!

Of course, if Boris had had any sense, he would have had cars banned from the city during the strike. Open the roads to pedal power only and decide at the end of the strike whether it would be worth letting the cars back in at all!

MrSweary

After Falkirk are we even sure the minority of union members who voted (let alone voted in favour of a strike) actually voted?

anonymousblackfg

I didn't think you'd see many RMT pickets today given their likely reward would be a barrage of abuse or a claw hammer to the face.

roger_merriman

Talius wrote:

roger merriman wrote:

Does show London centric this part of the forum is, for a vaste number of the population the tube is a irrelivence and probably aren't even aware there is a strike on.

Think that's just how London-centric commuting is, not Bikeradar as a whole.

well yes commuting has a London bias but there is a lot of London behond thr tube network and a lot of uk behond the M25

Media is appalling though understandably London centric.

notsoblue

menthel wrote:

Lets just say I am not convinced that he does do what is good for his Union.

I'm not convinced of this either to be honest. But for whatever reason, circumstances have lead to a situation where the only effective union leadership is a guy like Crow. Its almost as though compromise has evolved out of the system.

menthel wrote:

He certainly doesn't care about the general public whom his members serve.

I really don't think strikes have the devastating effect on the general public that you're implying.

rolf_f

roger merriman wrote:

Talius wrote:

roger merriman wrote:

Does show London centric this part of the forum is, for a vaste number of the population the tube is a irrelivence and probably aren't even aware there is a strike on.

Think that's just how London-centric commuting is, not Bikeradar as a whole.

well yes commuting has a London bias but there is a lot of London behond thr tube network and a lot of uk behond the M25

Media is appalling though understandably London centric.

I don't think most of us out here in the sticks really miss the media endlessly talking crap about ourselves! It would be different if the media were capable of getting even the most simple, basic facts right........

menthel

"notsoblue wrote:

menthel wrote:

He certainly doesn't care about the general public whom his members serve.

I really don't think strikes have the devastating effect on the general public that you're implying.

Not implying a devestating effect, just a lack of care for the general public that these people are employed to serve. There has certainly been a lot of arse ache for a lot of people today though as many people can't adapt!

I didn't cycle as I had to drop my son to school as well as going on a sausage making course tonight so had to brave the trains. They were much busier than usual (not sure how this is possible!) so I stayed on to Vauxhall and walked to Victoria rather than changing. Didn't bother me but some people can't deal with that type of thing!

roger_merriman

Rolf F wrote:

roger merriman wrote:

Talius wrote:

roger merriman wrote:

Does show London centric this part of the forum is, for a vaste number of the population the tube is a irrelivence and probably aren't even aware there is a strike on.

Think that's just how London-centric commuting is, not Bikeradar as a whole.

well yes commuting has a London bias but there is a lot of London behond thr tube network and a lot of uk behond the M25

Media is appalling though understandably London centric.

I don't think most of us out here in the sticks really miss the media endlessly talking crap about ourselves! It would be different if the media were capable of getting even the most simple, basic facts right........

I do get a cruel smile when something happens back in wales and they have to attempt to pronounce the place!