Bob Crow

[Gardian]

Ok, not everybody's idea of an ideal bedfellow, but somebody who clearly stood up for the people he represented.

A tragedy for anybody to die at such a young age.

I went for an interview at the RMT some fifteen yrs ago, when (organisationally) they were in turmoil and pretty ineffectual. Their membership was but a fraction of the eligible employees and needed to improve that. Crow was Secretary-elect.

I was amazed not to be asked how I felt about the possibility of working for a (militant) Union.

[PaulT]

My thought on learning of his death was that London commuters and Londoners would be breathing a sigh of relief.

Was it right to 'screw' a bonus out of TfL for RMT members to do what they were paid for during the Olympics.

The demand for treble time and a day in lieu for members working on Boxing Day

plus plus

and on a personal basis earning £140k and living in social housing.

[Frederick]

[quote user="PaulT"]My thought on learning of his death was that London commuters and Londoners would be breathing a sigh of relief.

Was it right to 'screw' a bonus out of TfL for RMT members to do what they were paid for during the Olympics.

The demand for treble time and a day in lieu for members working on Boxing Day

plus plus

and on a personal basis earning £140k and living in social housing.[/quote]

He only died today....  He has not had much time to rest in peace  !

[Quillan]

I was surprised at the people who paid tribute to him today on the BBC news. I was even more surprised to read the readers comments in the DM. One week they were calling him all the names under the sun and wanted to string him up by his testicals and the now they love him to bits. Strangely it is in the Guardian readers comments the nasty people are writing stuff about him when you would have expected them to love him, funny old world.

Personally it is always sad when somebody dies at a young(ish) age especially for the family they leave behind. From a public point of view he has never had any effect on my life one way or another.

[YCCMB]

I am led to believe that in at least one department of TFL there was a small cheer that went up.

[NormanH]

De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicemdum est

[woolybanana]

Show off!

[PaulT]

Frederick in reply to my comments said:

'He only died today.... He has not had much time to rest in peace ! '

Well, my thoughts are as they were when he was alive so why should they change because he has died?

Always amazes me when someone dies there are comments such as:

He was a wonderful person

She was an inspiration to all

Yet, when they were alive they were deeply criticised in a negative way - seems that when someone dies only good things can be said which may be contrary to what was said during their lifetime.

[Théière]

[quote user="PaulT"]My thought on learning of his death was that London commuters and Londoners would be breathing a sigh of relief.

Was it right to 'screw' a bonus out of TfL for RMT members to do what they were paid for during the Olympics.

The demand for treble time and a day in lieu for members working on Boxing Day

plus plus

and on a personal basis earning £140k and living in social housing.[/quote]

So the closing of manned ticket booths, the reduction of staff on platforms and stations in general would be welcomed by Londoners?  That will make it a muggers, druggies and other undesirables play area and don't for one minute think that post mortem examination examination of fuzzy CCTV images would be any help afterwards.

Yes a pain in the derrier to management but the thin red line for a lot of people and £140k, if it is true isn't much for the pressure of a job that kills you at 52.

[PaulT]

Have you used transport in London recently?

You never buy a ticket at the ticket office, be it overland or Underground (in fact at some overground stations there are only machines). It is far quicker and easier to use the machines so why have ticket offices? Regular users in London use their Oyster cards which involves simply placing the card on a sensor - so why would they want ticket offices?

As for staff on platforms well they are absolutely no use when the platform is heaving with travellers.

Perhaps, his weight was a contributory factor.

[YCCMB]

AFAIK, the plans to do away with manned ticket offices do not involve a reduction in staffing levels, simply a redeployment of staff from behind screens and out into station concourses and platforms, so I'm not entirely sure how moving staff to a place where they can actually deal with the public face to face will result in an increase in antisocial behaviour in underground stations. But I'm prepared to be convinced if anyone thinks they can explain.

The next issue is due to be that of "driverless" trains, apparently, according to the late Mr Crow, something which would lead to strikes which would make the ticket office strikes look like " a vicar's tea party". Funny, that. DLR has been operating driverless trains since it began, yet I'm unaware of any statistics pointing to DLR being less safe or having a worse record for accidents than any other part of the TfL network.

Living, as I do, within spitting distance of a largely unmanned railway station out in the 'burbs, I don't see it crowded with druggies or anyone else displaying antisocial tendencies when there's nobody in the ticket office, and it does mean there are more staff on trains to check tickets and offer information and advice.

I do see issues for those with disabilities if there isn't a ticket office: how will those with sight problems cope with ticket machines, for example? However, if there's someone available on the concourse to assist them, then perhaps it isn't a problem of such magnitude as to warrant having someone sitting behind a glass screen for 8-12 hours a day on the offchance?

[NickP]

I love the "middle class" attitude and demonisation towards Bob Crow. In the last two weeks the teachers and lawyers have both had walk outs, not a word apart from a couple of lines in the rags, still I suppose if he'd had a cut glass accent , the tube travelling "outraged from Weybridge " wouldn't be so upset. Crow's members thought he was great, he increased their pay packets and he increased the union membership, not easily done today. Unfortunately for him he had a short life, but I would imagine a satisfying one.

[Quillan]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Funny, that. DLR has been operating driverless trains since it began, yet I'm unaware of any statistics pointing to DLR being less safe or having a worse record for accidents than any other part of the TfL network.

[/quote]

I used to live in Docklands and used the DLR nearly every working when working in London. The trains worked well, they all had a "Train Captain" who checked tickets and could move the train if it didn't stop in the right place on the platform (more of an exception than normal). They had also been trained to drive the trains if required although I never saw one doing this so I guess it hardly ever happened. There were no ticket offices except at the terminus in the City, just machines on the platform.

The main difference between the DLR and tube trains is size, a tube train having three or four times as many carriages. All the DLR platforms were straight so you can clearly see along the platform in both directions, this is not always the case with the tube stations. My conclusion being, from a technical and practicable point, is that it would be very much harder to have driverless tube trains.

The last time I was in London (a few years back) I bought an Oyster card (think that was the name) and thought it was brilliant. A bit tricky to register your first one if I remember right but after that it was easy to recharge and use. All the tube stations I assume still have the panic and contact buttons and seeing that the staff don't seem to want to get involved in 'punch ups' on platforms I can't really see the problem.

Back on track, the only thing I could say about Crow was that he was very good at looking after the members and had a real respect from them, something lacking in some other unions.

[Théière]

Have I traveled by train/tube recently? Yes and I bet a lot more than you have.  Consider if you will, the broken ticket machine incident with the ticket office closed it IS an offence to travel without a ticket end of, I committed the crime I don't care and would have taken my day in court but thankfully due to unmanned stations I travelled un challenged and for free. You cannot run a business like that. 

I have worked with machinery all my life and I can tell you they do have breakdowns as humans have sick days but they can't phone in sick and be replaced at a moments notice.

When there is an issue with your oyster card payment you can't travel either but with a ticket office the old manual way works as it does for information on the journey.

Yes Betty not every station platform has undesirables waiting for you to step onto, neither does every street but it does happen and it does happen closer to the city than outside because the escape routes across the city are easier and the chances of a customer with the latest mobile phone/tablet are far higher, richer pickings.

Yes the DLR works, travel it a lot but there are a lot more members of staff around on that line, just because they save a driver doesn't mean every line should, the DLR is above ground not below.

It was according to TFL going to save £50,000,000 pounds by cutting 1,000 jobs which means each ticket office staff member or colleagues would be earning £50,000 per year so something doesn't add up. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/04/britain-tube-strike-idUKL5N0L91CG20140204

I didn't say it was perfect but neither is removing the human interface at stations even if a proportion would fail at charm school.

[YCCMB]

But they aren't making redundancies, they're doing it through voluntary redundancy or natural wastage. However, there is no question of removing the human interface except, as I understand it, at far-flung tube stations in the sticks. Certainly, there won't be any actual reduction in the number of staff at Zone 1 stations, they just won't be sitting in a ticket office. So the human interface won't be removed at all, just deployed differently.

I think what a lot of people overlook when trying to match the potential savings made from redundancies, voluntary or otherwise, is the employers' contributions aspect of salaries. I think that adds about another 14% on top of salary payments.

[Théière]

Agreed Betty but I guess that's why they deemed it necessary to take industrial action as TFL wouldn't write that and the other conditions on paper so union lawyers could question it, or maybe they did but just like on here there are opinions which differ.  I do agree that some of the staff can be less than helpful so once out of the ticket office should the need arise it could be "not my job sir" and if it was and you were now paid less money to carry out other work rather than before you may not behave in quite the same way.  Restructuring is often about getting people to re apply for a "similar" position but for less money. Then some member of the higher echelons gets a bonus many times the saving on staff salaries but hey ho that's on a different budget sheet so it's invisible. 

Even with employers contributions that would still be circa £43,000 pa

[PaulT]

I believe that either the Jubilee or Victoria line was designed to be driverless which were new lines and hence no existing staff.....the union said 'OH NO YOU HAVE GOT TO HAVE DRIVERS'.

Was it also not the case that when steam trains went and diesel and electrics came in for a while they had to have a fireman.

Progress means change.

Those on LT who were keen for voluntary redundancy are probably not too happy.

[Théière]

Indeed PaulT, progress does mean change, sadly like Butchers in UK supermarkets someone claims a pat on the back for putting them in shops when the customers didn't want them taken out in the first place a few years prior, but that would to some be seen as being negative but facts and stats are often manipulated to serve one person's cause.  There will be chances for voluntary redundancy as the scheme of things moves to make people give up so people on forums can condemn the lazy B'stards on the dole, so even they can't win but who knows retraining as burger flipper (can't they get a machine to do that?)

Hopefully new technology means they can re skill elsewhere otherwise it shifts the money from the tube balance sheet to the countries balance sheet albeit at a far lower rate that only IDS can survive on.

Bob Crow & Nelson Mandella, one person's freedom fighter is another person's freedom fighter is a terrorist.

I thought the comment on the Lawyers on strike fell a little flat as they were striking against the removal of legal aid for the little people as their only means of getting redress where of course the ridiculous conmen claimed  huge legal aid bills as the UK froze the defendants assets which hopefully means the money will find it's way back to the public purse.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/john-henry-sayers-legal-aid-6741939

[YCCMB]

...which is probably about right. The band range for a duty station manager in TfL was (in 2013) £58-65K. That's freely available information, as are all the TfL "senior" salaries (I can't post a link, but google TfL tube staff salaries and it'll take you to an Excel spreadsheet). It's all fairly transparent and in the public domain as there's probably not a day goes by without someone asking for the information through freedom of information requests.

This might put things into further perspective. As already mentioned, Crow has been generally credited for ensuring that his members received probably one of the best employment packages available in any sector:

[url]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/9036767/Best-paid-Tube-driver-is-on-61218-a-year.html[/url]

and I did forget that, as the article mentions,  there's at least £4K worth of additional benefits in the form of free travel for employee and partner/spouse, aside from any other benefits. That applies across the board, not just to tube drivers, BTW.

So, logically, if a driver's basic is bordering on 50K and the next level of management up has a salary band with a lower band limit of £54K, the figure for savings looks, if anything, to be a bit on the low side. I doubt the people working in ticket offices, assuming they're also RMT members, are muddling along on much lower packages. I imagine the RMT would already have seen to that.[:D].

I don't think TfL policy (let alone RMT "policy") would allow or legislate for a situation where someone was redeployed and asked to take a salary cut, BTW, so I assume whether sitting in a ticket booth or strolling the platforms, you'd be earning the same rate of pay, or be within the same payscale band.

[Patf]

When I was a post-grad student I remember writing an essay on relative wages, and one of the points I made was that train drivers have responsibility for the the lives of thousands of people, so deserved a high wage, comparable with doctors.

So £50k is  underpaid [:D]

I still have that essay somewhere, I got a good mark.