Mind The Pay Gap? Tube Drivers 'To Get £55k'

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Rob

So to get this thread back on track, if at all possible, are you saying that the current deal that started this thread of £55k for tube drivers with future RPI + a bit linked wage increases is not in some way generous or appropriate. Or do you believe even more should be paid including the added demands of the Boxing Day working dispute?

At what stage would you suggest the underground's union demands would become unreasonable? Should the taxpayer and travelling public just accept that TFL and the mayor will roll over to every demand that is made of them, regardless of the cost incurred and implications of that cost to the economy as a whole as well as the travelling public?

I feel that Tfl should give in to their demands for the sake of communters!

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

In Norway, Sweden and Denmark they are more generous in terms of public spending and union relations!

Public spending can never be considered as generous, it has to be funded either with current or future tax revenues, those revenues paid by the public either directly or through receiving lower compensation from employers or paying higher prices for goods and services - the government spending people's money for them rather than allowing them to keep it.

Unsure what that has to do with this topic either way.

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

I feel that Tfl should give in to their demands for the sake of communters!

and the next time ?........,and the time after that ? should we keep giving in untill tube travel is so expensive none can afford it

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

I feel that Tfl should give in to their demands for the sake of communters!

I think TfL should tell them where to shove their demands, get permission from the government and issue some bonds to fund driverless trains. For the sake of commuters of course. Computers as a general rule don't tear up collective bargaining agreements because they might feel the need.

Our tube system is already horrifically expensive, as a tax payer and a fare payer, paying for the tube in both ways, I absolutely reject your suggestion that it would be for my sake that drivers should get anything they ask for.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by martyh

and the next time ?........,and the time after that ? should we keep giving in untill tube travel is so expensive none can afford it

It already expensive with the latest fare rises!

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

It already expensive with the latest fare rises!

Is that a glimmer of realisation in your flawed logic ?

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I think TfL should tell them where to shove their demands, get permission from the government and issue some bonds to fund driverless trains. For the sake of commuters of course. Computers as a general rule don't tear up collective bargaining agreements because they might feel the need.

Our tube system is already horrifically expensive, as a tax payer and a fare payer, paying for the tube in both ways, I absolutely reject your suggestion that it would be for my sake that drivers should get anything they ask for.

They still need to employ the same amount of staff even if they get rid of Drivers, you still need staff on trains!

---------- Post added at 11:17 ---------- Previous post was at 11:16 ----------

Originally Posted by martyh

Is that a glimmer of realisation in your flawed logic ?

No I would rather give in that face a long battle with unions, while Strikes keep on happining!

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

They still need to employ the same amount of staff even if they get rid of Drivers, you still need staff on trains!

!

As has been pointed out to you on a few occasions ,driverless trains may need a token member of staff on board but that staff member will not be on £50-55k a year more closer to 15-20k which is a much more attractive proposition to LU .Also these staff members could be replaced at a whim by agency staff or staff from other areas of LU not involved in any disputes dramatically weakening the unions hand

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

It already expensive with the latest fare rises!

Perhaps you should ask yourself the real question then as to why the costs are so high to the public and how that then sits with your statement of

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

I feel that Tfl should give in to their demands for the sake of communters!

Wages are clearly a major proportion of the costs of running a transport system, with the infrastructure maintenance and investment costs the other big part. Both need to be balanced if a system is to be efficient against the income that is acceptable from fares and other grants and subsidies.

The money to meet demands of unions has to come from somewhere. It might be great to take the communist or socialist approach (some thing that failed in the soviet block countries that are now pursuing a more capitalist economy) so that high earning individuals are taxed to such a level where they have no incentive to innovate and will look to relocate to other countries so that all their income is lost to our economy.

Funding is not the bottomless pit you seem to extole. Or actually perhaps that is how you see the underground as a big hole that is bottomless in terms of the expenditure that should be allowed?

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by martyh

As has been pointed out to you on a few occasions ,driverless trains may need a token member of staff on board but that staff member will not be on £50-55k a year more closer to 15-20k which is a much more attractive proposition to LU .Also these staff members could be replaced at a whim by agency staff or staff from other areas of LU not involved in any disputes dramatically weakening the unions hand

What if those staff are members of Unions like the ones on the DLR?

Why can yuo not stand up for Unions, do you want more people to go nito poverty?

http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/15899265

---------- Post added at 11:33 ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 ----------

Originally Posted by Rob

Perhaps you should ask yourself the real question then as to why the costs are so high to the public and how that then sits with your statement of





Wages are clearly a major proportion of the costs of running a transport system, with the infrastructure maintenance and investment costs the other big part. Both need to be balanced if a system is to be efficient against the income that is acceptable from fares and other grants and subsidies.

The money to meet demands of unions has to come from somewhere. It might be great to take the communist or socialist approach (some thing that failed in the soviet block countries that are now pursuing a more capitalist economy) so that high earning individuals are taxed to such a level where they have no incentive to innovate and will look to relocate to other countries so that all their income is lost to our economy.

Funding is not the bottomless pit you seem to extole. Or actually perhaps that is how you see the underground as a big hole that is bottomless in terms of the expenditure that should be allowed?

What about dividents to Private Transport companies? It is just that communism has failed but Free Market Capitalism as well and I feel that if Rich people move abroad then they need to pay a lot for doing that along with a harmonisation of Taxes so no nation has a Tax advantage over another, becoming a tax haven should be considered a act of war!

I am not talking about a bottomless pit but the need to claw back most of many Trillions and Trillions that the very rich hold!

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

becoming a tax haven should be considered a act of war!

Are you for real

Originally Posted by Rob

Are you for real

It's time to invade Jersey, Isle of Man, Monaco, and the Cayman Islands!

Bagsy me the Caymans....

Unfortunately, Alan is just continuing down the financial route that helped get us into this mess (along with the Bankers who de-coupled risk and reward, and the consumers (i.e, us....) who borrowed and spent more than they could afford), which, as Ed Milliband's close ally Lord Glasman states in today's Guardian

"Old faces from the Brown era still dominate the shadow cabinet and they seem stuck in defending Labour's record in all the wrong ways – we didn't spend too much money, we'll cut less fast and less far, but we can't tell you how."

In a caustic assessment, he says: "Labour is apparently pursuing a sectional agenda based on the idea that disaffected Liberal Democrats and public-sector employees will give Labour a majority next time round. But we have not won, and show no signs of winning, the economic argument. We have not articulated a constructive alternative capable of recognising our weaknesses in government and taking the argument to the coalition. We show no relish for reconfiguring the relationship between the state, the market and society. The world is on the turn, yet we do not seem equal to the challenge."

He asserts that it looks as "if Labour is stranded in a Keynesian orthodoxy with no language to talk straight to people"....

..."The problem with Brownite political economy is that, even though it was true that a 3% deficit was not excessive in the context of economic growth, it was debt that was growing at the time, rather than the real economy. A vast, sustained expansion in private debt fuelled the financial sector throughout Brown's tenure as chancellor and then prime minister."

He goes on to attack some of the central insights of Brownite economics, and so by implication the thinking the shadow chancellor, writing "Endogenous growth, flexible labour-market reform, free movement of labour, the dominance of the City of London – it was all crap, and we need to say so."

He says: "Miliband needs to break out of internal party discussions and address the issue of national decline and how to reverse it. A balance of interests in corporate governance, a vocational economy, regional banks and fiscal discipline offer a platform for growth."

In other words - face up to reality, and get some realistic policies.

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by rob

are you for real

yes i am! :d

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

Why can yuo not stand up for Unions, do you want more people to go nito poverty?

I do support the union movement ,but only when their demands are reasonable .

What if those staff are members of Unions like the ones on the DLR?

Then the job will filled by non union staff either temporarily of permanently

much easier to get temps in to cover strikes when trains are driverless

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

What if those staff are members of Unions like the ones on the DLR?

Why can yuo not stand up for Unions, do you want more people to go nito poverty?

http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/15899265

Do you want more people forced into poverty as their costs of living rise to fund crazy wage settlements for others?

The usual logic here, no way of paying for anything other than vague comments about rinsing the rich.