Tube Drivers Again.

somethingcorporate

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I don't know.

The average pay is £83K.

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/citys-average-pay-leaps-12-to-83000-6370229.html

It depends how far up that curve you would class them as being, in terms of skills, ability, knowledge, expertise.

Perhaps another question is whether the high earners that skew the average are worth it?

I doubt the current level of pay has been achieved solely as a result of Union pressure. The employer must also have had a hand in agreeing what they felt was a reasonable level of pay.

Whoa there - the figures you are quoting are salaries for the City (not the whole of London) which a very specific area mainly full of highly paid bankers and lawyers so not exactly representative.

Why do you think such a comparison reasonable? This bit made made me laugh quite hard: "Staff who stayed put and were not promoted saw pay increase 8%."

Unfortunately, if the employer says no - guess what the union do? STRIKE until they get their own way. Given they can poleaxe the entire transport system for millions to cause the most amount of pain the stakes are very high and the union wields a huge amount of power.

Edit: Re-reading your post I see you were trying to draw a comparison to the highly paid which makes sense.

Personally, I see train drivers closer to the median than the top end - and agree how far up that scale is widely open for debate. Should they earn more than train drivers? Bus drivers? Your guess is as good as mine but I think there will get a point to when they price themselves out of the market.

grizzly1911

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Edit: Re-reading your post I see you were trying to draw a comparison to the highly paid which makes sense.

Personally, I see train drivers closer to the median than the top end - and agree how far up that scale is widely open for debate. Should they earn more than train drivers? Bus drivers? Your guess is as good as mine but I think there will get a point to when they price themselves out of the market.

I know it does seem a high rate of pay, higher than I thought as I mentioned in an earlier post.

I agree that they will price them selves out of a job at some point, it is just when. I guess they are always on a balancing point. As long as the total cost of the old operation is lower than the total cost of the new including investment right down costs they can leverage their position - to some degree.

I don't know what the rates are now but I know starting pay (advertised out side London) for train conductors (managers) were low £30ks a couple of years ago on Virgin. I believe Air Stewards and Stewardesses can be very well rewarded on the bigger operators too.

I do think some of the other 24/7 "skilled" roles are perhaps undervalued - thinking paramedics.

As I posted earlier I thought the premium bank holiday rates had been traded for better conditions, pay uplift and holidays in the 90s so don't really know what they are protesting about now.

somethingcorporate

I don't know either but they do it often, loudly and with maximum disruption so I think in the economics equation you mention above there will also be an element of how much longer can we really let these guys get away with holding the capital to ransom.

You'd have thought having such massive jumps in pay they'd be the last ones to strike but since it has worked so effectively for them it appears they will keep on pushing until the powers that be really start thinking what they can do to change the game.

N1AK

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I doubt automating the system will save very much. The cost of the technology up front, routinely updating the technology, sytems support technicians and engineers, more safety inspections, breakdown resolution.

I bet it'll happen surprisingly soon, save more than you think and be safer as well. Self-driving vehicles are rapidly approaching a tipping point; I honestly would be shocked if it wasn't the default in all forms of transport by the end of the decade.

Part of the reason it'll happen sooner rather than later on the underground is any viable automated system will increase capacity. The fact you can do that without the union risks, high wages and benefits and with less use of the trains are just added bonuses.

CLAPTON

both the victoria line and the central line could operate without a 'driver' tomorrow

GeorgeHowell

Moby wrote: »

Read that in the Daily Mail did you:rotfl:

One does not have to read the Daily Mail to appreciate the damage that many trade union leaders have done to this country. Not trade unions per se, I stress, but many of the individuals who have set themselves to run them. By using the workforces of a number of industries as cannon fodder in their political war, aimed at imposing Marxism on the (as they see it) evil capitalist system they have destroyed or severely damaged whole industries eg the docks, newspaper production, the motor industry, and coal mining. In the case of the first three new lower-employment versions have subsequently sprung up with a much more enlightened workforce attitude from the outset. But coal mining was virtually killed off by the likes of Scargill.

Trade union leaders of that ilk are worse than socially useless -- they are socially toxic.

The left like to try to blame Thatcher for all of that industrial collapse. But the truth is that without the malign influence of these people she might not even have been elected, let alone have to do what she did not quell their damaging and nihilistic power over the whole nation.

sinbad182

CLAPTON wrote: »

both the victoria line and the central line could operate without a 'driver' tomorrow

No, they couldnt.

They could probably run from one end of the line to the other without a driver, but thats it. Just because a train has the ability to run its route automatically does not mean its ready for driverless operation throughout a working day.

Take it from me, even if you took union pressure out of the equation it would still be a long time before LU trains were ready to go into daily passenger service in a driverless capacity.

Yolina

CLAPTON wrote: »

London Dockland Light railways is totally driverless.

But there is always a member of staff on board - during rush hour they usually do take control of the trains (and in this case can be found on the left set of seats right at the front).

Edit: as for Tube drivers, well... probably not the most pleasant job but they are paid extremely well for it and I'm totally sick and tired of them going on strike over pretty much anything (and I'm glad that I don't need to take the Tube every day!)

sheffield_lad

I can't wait for the day of driver less tube train, serve the greedy unions right, how anyone can justify this militant attitude is beyond me. I bet the London underground management feel like banging their heads on the wall.

GeorgeHowell

Those who try to hold society to ransom invariably eventually end up cutting their own economic throats. Workers in thrall to people like Bob Crowe should take heed of that.