I'm a railway engineer and the guy is doing a brilliant job . I couldn't give a stuff if he's millwall , all I know is that my job and thousands of others are much safer with him around. Hate the man all you like ( and most will) but he stops the idiots who run these massive transport companies putting money ahead of safety and jobs. The best £13 pound a month I ever spend.
As long as my commute isnt made even longer and more uncomfortable by strikes it doesnt really bother me. Good luck to em, I know id be happy with £50k a year
Not really. Anyone with half a brain can see that a monkey could do a 'brilliant job' if they were in the position he is. Compliant membership, inefficient management, an absolutely essential service, political and economic pressure to keep it running at all costs, and regulations to ensure no-one else can do the job.
Net result? 50 grand a year for an unskilled job whilst nurses are expected to get by on a third that amount.
'Power to the people! (or more accurately, 'power to the miniscule percentage of people fortunate enough to hold all the cards')
Crow is the head of a trade union, his job is to get the best possible deal for his workers and he is doing it, what's the problem with that? Maybe people would prefer we pay our tube drivers 15K per year and have them all moonlighting on second jobs to make ends meet?
Crow is, in effect, a lobbyist for his members interests and does a bloody good job of it, have a look at the "industry groups" defending the interests of the "professional" vocations like the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors, the British Medical Association, the British Bankers Association and The Law Society and see if they aren't also out there aggressively defending the interests of their members.
On a personal level Crow does indeed seem to be a bit of a twat but on a professional level the bloke is top drawer although, as Leroy points out, Crow does hold a particularly strong deck of cards!
Most people dont see the bigger picture with Bob Crow and the RMT. Let me give you an example .
When you go to get a train what is the most important thing to you? Is it on time? Will you get a seat? I hope there isnt any strikes?
Ask yourself these questions instead.
Are the brakes working properly on the train ? Are the safety systems in full working order.? Will I get to my destination in one piece . ?
Two years ago , In the train maintenance depot where I work , management decided that good way to increase profits would be to make 280 skilled engineers redundant.( of which I am am one). engineers that maintain the braking systems on all the trains . In their place they were going to bring in cheap foreign unqualified contractors . Would you be happy with that ?
Thankfully , thanks to Mr Crow and the RMT they decided against the idea and now your trains are much safer because of it. We didn't go on strike . We didn't have to , symply because Bob Crow did his job and did what was right.
If The "squeaky clean "Sun had their way they would have him alongside Hitler and Gary Glitter just because he drives a nice car and has a large salary .Pathetic. He earns every penny of that wage because he saves the jobs of thousands of British workers every year.
Chilling story about the foreign contractors, Beds.
Of all the privatizations, the railway one was the most stupid, ill-concieved and incompetently executed of the lot, and that's saying something. Even Thatcher knew it was a can of worms, for exactly reasons like you describe.
As Stig says i wished Unison et al had Bob Crow running it. Had that been the case i doubt 100,000's of public sector workers would be losing their jobs to bail out the banking sector, picking up the bill for a failing currency and paying billions to bloated energy companies for a bunch of pointless windmills.
First class job to get that deal even with the strength of bargaining position he has.
He's still utter (insert abusive name of choice here) though...
The tube drivers have always been on a decent screw,way before Crowe was on the scene.Their wage we were told was higher due to the location of the depots ie London.I am a train driver and the tube drivers pay has always made me raise an eyebrow even though the gap has closed significantly and some companies now pay more than the Underground.Their skill set in my opinion is pretty near the bottom of train drivers especially in comparison with the freight drivers and the high speed boys and girls and the tube doesn't have anything like the approaches to London Bridge,Clapham Jn,Victoria etc.The rail unions have done a good job in keeping safety standards up since privatisation if what a lot of cowboy operators had wanted to bring in there would be more than few train crash threads doing the rounds on here.If your union can do a job for you you ain't going to look a gift horse in the mouth!
Totally understand that he's doing what he's supposed to do for his Members but getting the union out on strike and holding London to ransom everytime one of his workshy slackers gets caught drinking on the job, pulling a sickie or just fancy a few more thousand quid is frankly taking the piss.
Trotting out the usual "Safety" bollocks everytime they go out is wearing a trifle thin too.
The sooner they sack the whole lot of the tube 'drivers' and replace them with automated trains the better!
In the meantime though, anyone know where I can apply for a job?
The tube drivers have always been on a decent screw,way before Crowe was on the scene.Their wage we were told was higher due to the location of the depots ie London.I am a train driver and the tube drivers pay has always made me raise an eyebrow even though the gap has closed significantly and some companies now pay more than the Underground.Their skill set in my opinion is pretty near the bottom of train drivers especially in comparison with the freight drivers and the high speed boys and girls and the tube doesn't have anything like the approaches to London Bridge,Clapham Jn,Victoria etc.The rail unions have done a good job in keeping safety standards up since privatisation if what a lot of cowboy operators had wanted to bring in there would be more than few train crash threads doing the rounds on here.If your union can do a job for you you ain't going to look a gift horse in the mouth!
I can't speak for the tube as I don't work for them but I can guarantee that there would have been a lot more deaths on the railway in recent years if profit was put ahead jobs and crow or the RMT wasn't around . I don't like him as a person either but he does a great job for his members and although you may not realise it ( not you personally Ritchie) or want to admit it , hes good for the passengers as well.
Let's face it, I doubt he cares how many people he pisses off and why, he does what he does very well and has achieved exactly what he set out to do. As a human being he's no doubt a utter bastard but he's a successful bastard.
Funny how someone (Comrade Crow) screwing millions of people over in order to line the nests of him and his colleagues is deemed a hero but others (Fred the Shred) who screw millions of people over in order to line the nests of him and his colleageus are deemed utter shites.
from what bedsa says I can see why if you are a member of his union then you will think the sun shines out of his ass but surely you would lose respect if you know you can get away with stuff that no normal person should get away with
Sure I saw a while back in the press that a bloke who was sacked for punching either a colleague/boss/member of the public was given his job back when then Fatso asked everyone to strike
They get away with murder .. well not literally ... but maybe they would strike if they didn't .. and then get their jobs back ... so they would after all
It looks like Crow does a fantastic job for his members doesn't it? But technology always wins out in the end. Remember restrictive practices in Fleet Street that led to Wapping '86? How many members do those print unions have in work now? In some cases the actual unions don't exist any more. SOGAT, SLADE and the NGA were once all as powerful as the RMT.
Long term I doubt very much that Crow's doing right by his members - he's just wringing the neck of the goose that lays the golden egg isn't he? The DLR runs perfectly well without any train drivers at all. It is inevitable that the tube will go the same way: it's just a question of when. Crow's unrealistic demands just mean it will be sooner rather than later. I'd expect TfL to start seriously looking at driverless technology as soon as the Olympics are over.
I'm sure tube drivers will be queuing up to thank him when there are no longer any cushy tube jobs with final salary pensions.
I thought some of the tube lines were automatic and the bloke on the front is only there so the public think there is someone driving the train and to operate the doors!
Comments
'Power to the People'
Hate the man all you like ( and most will) but he stops the idiots who run these massive transport companies putting money ahead of safety and jobs.
The best £13 pound a month I ever spend.
Net result? 50 grand a year for an unskilled job whilst nurses are expected to get by on a third that amount.
'Power to the people! (or more accurately, 'power to the miniscule percentage of people fortunate enough to hold all the cards')
Crow is the head of a trade union, his job is to get the best possible deal for his workers and he is doing it, what's the problem with that? Maybe people would prefer we pay our tube drivers 15K per year and have them all moonlighting on second jobs to make ends meet?
Crow is, in effect, a lobbyist for his members interests and does a bloody good job of it, have a look at the "industry groups" defending the interests of the "professional" vocations like the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors, the British Medical Association, the British Bankers Association and The Law Society and see if they aren't also out there aggressively defending the interests of their members.
On a personal level Crow does indeed seem to be a bit of a twat but on a professional level the bloke is top drawer although, as Leroy points out, Crow does hold a particularly strong deck of cards!
Let me give you an example .
When you go to get a train what is the most important thing to you?
Is it on time?
Will you get a seat?
I hope there isnt any strikes?
Ask yourself these questions instead.
Are the brakes working properly on the train ?
Are the safety systems in full working order.?
Will I get to my destination in one piece . ?
Two years ago , In the train maintenance depot where I work , management decided that good way to increase profits would be to make 280 skilled engineers redundant.( of which I am am one).
engineers that maintain the braking systems on all the trains .
In their place they were going to bring in cheap foreign unqualified contractors . Would you be happy with that ?
Thankfully , thanks to Mr Crow and the RMT they decided against the idea and now your trains are much safer because of it.
We didn't go on strike . We didn't have to , symply because Bob Crow did his job and did what was right.
If The "squeaky clean "Sun had their way they would have him alongside Hitler and Gary Glitter just because he drives a nice car and has a large salary .Pathetic.
He earns every penny of that wage because he saves the jobs of thousands of British workers every year.
First class job to get that deal even with the strength of bargaining position he has.
He's still utter (insert abusive name of choice here) though...
Fence sitter ;o)
And they call Crow a thug . Explain why you think he's Marxist,
Trotting out the usual "Safety" bollocks everytime they go out is wearing a trifle thin too.
The sooner they sack the whole lot of the tube 'drivers' and replace them with automated trains the better!
In the meantime though, anyone know where I can apply for a job?
I can't speak for the tube as I don't work for them but I can guarantee that there would have been a lot more deaths on the railway in recent years if profit was put ahead jobs and crow or the RMT wasn't around .
I don't like him as a person either but he does a great job for his members and although you may not realise it ( not you personally Ritchie) or want to admit it , hes good for the passengers as well.
Goonerhater is obviously a thug as well. Crow certainly is a Marxist, he says so himself frequently. From Wiki
Crow was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and then the Communist Party of Britain after the CPGB's dissolution, between 1983 and 1995, when he left to join Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party (SLP). He stood as a candidate for the East of England region in the 1999 European elections for the SLP and as a candidate for the London Assembly. He has since left the SLP, though he remains an admirer of Scargill,[2] and is no longer a member of any political party, although he gave his support to the now disbanded Socialist Alliance, and believes all socialist parties should unite.[2] In the 2005 general election, he endorsed Robert Griffiths, the Communist Party of Britain's candidate in Pontypridd, calling him "a champion of workers' rights".[8] Griffiths went on to win 233 votes (0.6%), coming in last place out of the six candidates. In the 2010 Local Election he publicly supported the directly elected Mayoral candidate in the London Borough of Hackney Monty Goldman and the candidate for Leabridge Ward Mick Carty.
Personally find Crow very frustrating but there's no doubt he done a great job for his members, taking advantage of their monopoly position.
Funny how someone (Comrade Crow) screwing millions of people over in order to line the nests of him and his colleagues is deemed a hero but others (Fred the Shred) who screw millions of people over in order to line the nests of him and his colleageus are deemed utter shites.
It looks like Crow does a fantastic job for his members doesn't it? But technology always wins out in the end. Remember restrictive practices in Fleet Street that led to Wapping '86? How many members do those print unions have in work now? In some cases the actual unions don't exist any more. SOGAT, SLADE and the NGA were once all as powerful as the RMT.
Long term I doubt very much that Crow's doing right by his members - he's just wringing the neck of the goose that lays the golden egg isn't he? The DLR runs perfectly well without any train drivers at all. It is inevitable that the tube will go the same way: it's just a question of when. Crow's unrealistic demands just mean it will be sooner rather than later. I'd expect TfL to start seriously looking at driverless technology as soon as the Olympics are over.
I'm sure tube drivers will be queuing up to thank him when there are no longer any cushy tube jobs with final salary pensions.