The Labour Government

[metalblue]

It's pertinent because you posted it!!

Private sector workers are inevitably less well organised and more fragmented. it doesn't mean management is therefore decent, just less chance that a worker can take effective action. My son-in-law was working for a small but well known company. Their treatment of the staff was appalling, right down to Health and Safety issues. He was considered a trouble maker for having the gall to raise it. He put up with it for a couple of years but then walked. No one else was prepared to challenge them. Shit management continues there.

If working conditions are bad surely they’d want to organise? But I do take your point. Part of the issue might be you walk in to an already unionised organisation it’s easier to join and organise versus trying to set one up from scratch.

Assuming your son-in-laws approach of voting with his feet was more likely than striking in the private sector I did a little check to see what turnover rates were like between the two - you’re almost twice as likely to leave a public sector job than private sector which may suggest employees are happier in the private sector.

Strike less,
Less likely to leave.

Yes there are shit managers as well.

 

[hampshireblue]

Keir was genuinely gutted "I have a dream" was 4 words. The focus group said the risk was too great hoping the public could read for that period of time.

They also thought it may have been used before by someone else but being 4 words it never caught on.

Well, "Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future" worked for the Tories earlier this year!! It's amazing the Tories also used "Britain Deserves Better" in 2019-when they'd been in power for 9 years.

 

[metalblue]

I joined in 2000.

Regional railways had just finished. After 6 years of trial of error my original franchise seemed to strike a balance in providing the right service. Stagecoach then won the bid, cut our train fleet in half. Which led to a passenger group called train sardines protesting. Destroyed any semblance of first class travel perks for passengers and removed free tea and coffee for standard. Staff pay stagnated up to the point we became the lowest paid railway workers in the country. Stagecoach then underbid for the renewal and the new holders admitted they only wanted the London services. Promised lots of improvement for trains and passengers. After 5 years they've put some vinyl on a couple of trains whilst others go around with a sticker on them. They plead poverty to the DFT then pay out huge dividends every year whilst cutting staff. In COVID we had 5% passenger travel yet they made a profit of £20 million from taxpayers handouts claiming from a 'lost revenue' pool and split that with their stakeholders. Current management corporate gaslight front line staff.

The staff are now dropping like flies being overworked in critical operational roles and we're in dispute about unsafe working practices they imposed because of this.

For every franchise I've walked for they've got progressively worse.

Cheers pal for taking the time to post that. It sounds a nightmare if I’m being honest. This short term contract was certainly part of the problem - it encouraged management to deal in cycles rather than strategically.

You have to think anything the government does with the fully nationalised system will be meaningful rather than a couple of vinyls.

I do mourn the loss of the restaurant carriage on the big trains. Proper freshly cooked food. You’ve got me feeling all nostalgic!!!

 

[metalblue]

Keir was genuinely gutted "I have a dream" was 4 words. The focus group said the risk was too great hoping the public could read for that period of time.

They also thought it may have been used before by someone else but being 4 words it never caught on.

He could have busted out his inner Yoda and gone with “dream, I have”

 

[BlueHammer85]

So many I know despise Starmer and hate Labour , there’s nothing he or the party can do to even change their opinion.
Truly think Reform will be the next party in power in 4/5 years and we are fucked.

 

[hilts]

Well, "Clear Plan, Bold Action, Secure Future" worked for the Tories earlier this year!! It's amazing the Tories also used "Britain Deserves Better" in 2019-when they'd been in power for 9 years.

Cheeky fuckers weren't they?, shame people didn't cotton on sooner

 

[hilts]

So many I know despise Starmer and hate Labour , there’s nothing he or the party can do to even change their opinion.
Truly think Reform will be the next party in power in 4/5 years and we are fucked.

Please god that cannot happen, I don't have much faith in people but that would be catastrophic.

 

[Vic]

I think they support this on the understanding that these services will improve measurably or the cost of them will be reined in. I suspect there will be no difference in general performance -same track, same trains, same personnel, same stations. Where is the imrpovement going to come from?

Standardisation for a start. Companies with rolling stock with the same coupling mechanisms - but set at different heights so incompatible, so one company's trains can't rescue another's failed train (and no longer then spending millions to sort out the financial costs to each company).

And less rivalry for skills (different companies outbidding each other has been a major impetus for driver wages - rather than training their own).

And simplified fares.

 

[Vic]

The only ones to benefit from privatisation were those who bought OUR family silver at knockdown prices and have continued to rake in at the expense of proper investment. Thames Water is the classic way of getting a return. You just don't want their water down yer pipes.

My brother lives in Hampton and never fancied drinking tap water from the Thames that had already been drunk by 7 other people.

 

[Vic]

From the reinvestment of profit rather than it going to shareholders.

Or to subsidise fares in other countries from fares paid here to the nationalised rail companies of Europe.