Rail strike next month?

[Ferris]

I've thought about this sentence many times in my head and tried to make sense of it but I can't.

What DID happen to the dinosaurs?

I genuinely don't know what she's trying to say? Like... old people are dinosaurs, and they go extinct, so unions shouldn't be around? It also ignores the fact she's pushing 60.

A truly bizarre line of thinking

[Endicott]

It's not exactly coherent, but I think her implication was that Unions are old fashioned. Out of date. Going extinct. I'm rolling around a few alternatives there and they don't really work unless you've got the mind of a decrepit old cunt, but from that perspective you can see where she was coming from. Asking for more is wrong. Know your place.

[TrenterPercenter]

She's getting two things mixed up in trying to insert some Tory talking point into it all.

the Unions are archaic dinosaurs that everyone remembers from 70s when they cause interest rates to rise 18%......for 6 months, then trying to imply the went extinct, like the unions did, but they didn't and it doesn't make any sense.

She literally just thought tell them that they are dinosaurs and tried shoe horn it in whether it made sense or not.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

..

[Ferris]

It's not exactly coherent, but I think her implication was that Unions are old fashioned. Out of date. Going extinct. I'm rolling around a few alternatives there and they don't really work unless you've got the mind of a decrepit old cunt, but from that perspective you can see where she was coming from. Asking for more is wrong. Know your place.

Ohhhh! Ok, it's still bizarre but at least I can parse it now - she's refined her pithy statement to the point of near-incoherence.

She was off-balance because she was expecting to answer her first question with "no" (like "are RMT doing the right thing?" No!) but she had to pivot after the presenter used the negative and she never really recovered her footing.

Still, the stare at the end was top-drawer. Can't fault that.

[Buelligan]

I loved it that she made Mick Lynch laugh and yet he was still polite.  Polite to a mad nasty cunt and trying to hide his incredulity and amusement to save her blushes.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Have we posted this yet in this thread?

[Buelligan]

A fantastic wee film there, Fambo. Ta.

[DrGreggles]

It's not exactly coherent, but I think her implication was that Unions are old fashioned. Out of date. Going extinct. I'm rolling around a few alternatives there and they don't really work unless you've got the mind of a decrepit old cunt, but from that perspective you can see where she was coming from. Asking for more is wrong. Know your place.

If unions were out of date/going extinct then them striking would have no impact.
But it has had an impact, so she's wrong.

Still not sure what it has to do with dinosaurs though.
And she wasn't speaking figuratively - she meant actual dinosaurs!

[bgmnts]

Maybe she thinks that Jurassic Park was a documentary.

[Johnny Yesno]

Mick Lynch bodies other panelists on Question Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-05VW0q8uk

[Johnny Yesno]

Compilation from 21/Jun/2022:

Mick Lynch vs The Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgSUpyo86ZI

[Cold Meat Platter]

Sorry folks, aaaarrrgh bollocks. Have reports coming in that Mick Lynch think Ricky Gervais' new stand up special is 'deliciously un-PC'.

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

I read that the RMT supported Brexit? How's that going for it's members?

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

Double post

[Fambo Number Mive]

These are the six reasons the RMT gave for leaving the European Union: https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-sets-out-six-key-reasons-for-leaving-the-eu/

1.    Leave the EU to end attacks on rail workers

New EU rail policies are set to further entrench rail privatisation and fragmentation. That will also mean more attacks or jobs and conditions and EU laws will make it impossible to bring all of rail back into public ownership. 

2.    Leave the EU to end attacks on seafarers and the offshore workers

The EU has promoted undercutting and social dumping leading to the decimation of UK seafarers. The same is now happening in the offshore sector. EU directives also require the tendering our public ferry services.

3.    Leave the EU to end attacks on workers' rights

It's a myth that the EU is in favour of workers. In fact the EU is developing a new policy framework to attack trade union rights, collective bargaining, job protections and wages. This is already being enforced in countries which have received EU "bailouts".

4.    Leave the EU to end Austerity

If you join a union you expect members of the union to protect each other in times of trouble. The European Union has done the opposite. It has used the economic crisis to impose austerity and privatization on member states. Instead of protecting jobs and investment EU austerity is driving UK austerity.   

5.    Leave the EU to stop the attack on our NHS

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade agreement being negotiated between the EU and the United States will promote big business at the expense government protections and organisations including our NHS! Environmental regulations, employment rights, food safety, privacy laws and many other safeguards will also be secondary to the right of corporations to make even bigger profits. 

6.    Leave the EU to support democracy

The vast majority of the laws that affects our lives are now made in the EU and not the UK. We have no say over those Laws. As the late Tony Benn said in 1991...

"We are discussing whether the British people are to be allowed to elect those who make the laws under which they are governed. The argument is nothing to do with whether we should get more maternity leave from Madame Papandreou [a European Commissioner]."...

While I still think Brexit was a mistake, the EU has hardly  helped itself with some of its actions in the past, although I think Britain trying to help reform the EU would have been better than just leaving.

The RMT made the following comments in 2019 on Brexit:

...In Britain, the working class is international within the confines of one country and RMT has consistently defended the rights of all workers in Britain regardless of their country of origin.

RMT supports the Right to Remain for EU citizens living in Britain, on the simple basis that all progressive individuals and organisations must ensure that migrant workers are treated equally and enjoy equal rights to every other worker in the country once they arrive here.

Whatever the future brings in relation to UK Government immigration and settlement policy, RMT is determined that our members should never again face uncertainty about their status and we will campaign to ensure that those rights are respected.

We will continue to work for improved living standards for migrant workers as part of both the wider workforce and the RMT family in addition to continuing our long history of working for solidarity amongst all workers by campaigning against xenophobia and the so-called hostile environment.

We will not allow division to develop in our workplaces or in our Union, and every member regardless of background or origin will continue to enjoy full equal rights within our Union...

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/members-updates/the-effects-of-brexit-on-rmt-members160919/

Either way the RMT's stance on Brexit is irrelevant to these strikes, but I thought I would give more clarity on why the RMT supported Brexit in 2016.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Also worth reading is the RMT's response to Grant Shapps:

...Responding to claims made about working practices on the railway by Grant Shapps, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "Grant Shapps is talking nonsense and is completely ignorant of how the railways work which is a major shortcoming for a Transport Secretary.

"It is false that that Sunday working practices have not been updated since 1919.

"In many companies we have agreements that Sunday forms part of the working week and agreed provisions for rostering overtime for Sundays where the companies require the staff to work all of their contracted hours between Monday and Saturday with Sunday as extra hours.

"Network Rail has not suggested breaking up maintenance teams. They exist because they are safety critical, with specialist skills and are all drastically different from one another.

"Maintenance workers can work across boundaries as instructed by the company, but they only work across railway regions in emergencies. This is because the engineering assets in regions which derive from the original railway company regions can be very different and the staff may not have the training or competencies to deal with those engineering assets.

"This is both a safety and engineering standards issue, and Network Rail has never put a proposal to RMT to work across regions and many of their maintenance managers are actually opposed to this idea.

"It is an utter fallacy that our members will not travel in vans together.

"Staff are deployed in their specialist teams with the specialist equipment for the tasks they are trained for loaded up into those vehicles.

"It would be pointless sending staff to a location without their gear, equipment and tools which is why the vehicles and associated equipment are sent to site so that all of the kit from all of the engineering disciplines are at the location.

"There are nearly 90 separate engineering skills that our members can utilise to assist each other to get the job done.

"Shapps seems to be suggesting the elimination of engineering specialisms and skills which could be both inefficient and dangerous for the railway.

"Staff need to be properly trained, competent and experienced to work on the specialist equipment in the safety critical environment on track to protect the infrastructure, staff and travelling public...

https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-on-grant-shapps-claims/

[greencalx]

Happened to be near our second largest station* today, and thought I'd say hello to the picketers, but there fucking weren't any. Clearly this strike is a sham!

*Quite a lot smaller than the main one, so I hope there was a picket there at least...

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

"difference" (and identity, same thing in practice) has had a huge hold over intellectual life for the past half century. its guided a lot of things like the way institutions have decided to focus on language and discourse instead of practice and organisation, and the way that a so-called cultural turn has dominated the way that left wing activism and politics interacts with the intellectual traditions behind it. in leftist politics this is centered on the idea that universality and solidarity were, in themselves, oppressive or dominating ideas and the crediting of them with the failures of Marxism and the Soviet project, etc. so we must elevate difference over unity whether possible, fracture over cohesion and categories over commonalities. the truly oppressed are not the unequal but the different. its a much broader trend than this, of course, but I don't want to risk driving the thread off topic

ultimately this is a highly institutional (and aristocratic in the abstract sense) view and it can't hold forever. Focusing on "difference" can and has easily become part of the liberal "end of history" thesis: the one long march of a self-identical history to which all events belong fractures into the play of forces of social or cultural difference. In many parts of life where intellectual trends overlap with political or cultural life, we've seen historicism and genealogy take over from reason and logic, perspectives and positions take over from debate and argument. This is all the practical effects of old hat arguments from the 1970s as far as I'm concerned, and political reality is moving a lot faster than ideas do as usual.

its a back to the drawing board moment.

Just curious on your personal feelings towards identity, @Video Game Fan 2000

I do get your assertion that identity politics are exploited by liberals to help avoid any meaningful or revolutionary change etc etc, just like do you feel like any of the chat on our differences and individual identities has any value or is it all just liberalisms

[Video Game Fan 2000]

gonna reply via PM so I don't derail any furthur

[Crenners]

Wow can't believe the trens are off, think I just drive my car 😅😅😅

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Wow can't believe the trens are off, think I just drive my car 😅😅😅

gonna reply via PM so I don't derail any furthur

ta!

[Crenners]

That's what I assume every MSN News commenter looks like.

[greencalx]

gonna reply via PM so I don't derail any furthur

That'll be tricky, as the signallers are on strike.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Perhaps this is a daft question but how come rail and other transport staff are kind-of siloed on this sort of thing, would it be better if, say, bus drivers joined the railway guys for mutual interests?

[greencalx]

Not sure what you're driving (ahem) at. RMT represent all transport sectors in principle, but not sure how many bus operators (say) recognise them. Statutory recognition is possible but looks like a PITA.

If it's a case of unions working together, that sometimes happens, but experience of my own union suggests that getting different parts of it to pull in the same direction is already a bit of a challenge.

[KennyMonster]

I read that the RMT supported Brexit? How's that going for it's members?

Well Is it not true that it is hard written into the EU constitution that no privatisation of utilities/services can be reversed?

Nothing can be nationalised/re-nationalised in the EU.

[Buelligan]

I know publicly owned Italian railways (Trenitalia) own a fat slice of the tax-payer subsidised UK railways, the Avanti West Coast line and the Essex Thameside route. 

Yes, a forrin government's publicly-owned railway company privately owns part of the UK's railways and receives subsidised profits from UK taxpayers because having a nationalised UK railway system would not work in here.  Presumably, profits, share dividends, go to support Italy's public railways.

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avanti_West_Coast
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_Thameside
https://www.bringbackbritishrail.org/franchises/west-coast/

[Buelligan]

And you know what that means, don't you?  Every time these cunts say, well, a national railway system is a public good, it contributes towards net zero too, of course we need to subsidise it. We should wonder why the Italians, who, I imagine are in the same boat, rail-wise, would want to, out of the goodness of their hearts, hands across the ocean, invest in a piece of the UK's railways too.

Someone should pose in front of a train with a huge amount of money written on the side of it.

https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/rail-firms-have-paid-over-ps1-billion-shareholders-last-6-years-finds-tuc

[KennyMonster]

I think there's the same from Germany and France on some of the rail franchises over here too.

That much I knew,

what surprised me was to hear about the whole non-nationalisation rule that the EU has.

I've been listening to a series of podcasts on economics and this came from an Austrailian Economist who had advised John McDonell (the episode was recorded pre GE2019).

He had told JM that the plans for re-nationalisation of the railways etcwere incompatible with Labour staying in the EU.

Presumably this goes for things like the partial privatisation of the NHS too.
(which makes the Lib Dems even more anti-NHS than previously thought due to the 2012 Health and Social Care Act they voted for and their hard stance on the reversal of Brexit).