Tube Strikes Page 13

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  • imamazed 5 Feb 2014 16:09:44 6,708 posts
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    CaptainKerbal wrote:
    Anyway enjoy your day off / "strike" .....
    Again, it's not a day off; striking staff are not paid and, in fact, a lot of them will be helping out in union duties.
  • Khanivor 5 Feb 2014 16:11:55 44,800 posts
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    imamazed wrote:
    And with your second point, you've sort of answered your own question. They're coming across like that because of media bias, not because of their actual activites.
    Is media bias responsible for their grossly inflated pay packets and the simple fact that the jobs in question are no longer relevant? IF the RMT had been around back in the day there would probably still be loads of fellas employed to scoop up horse shit from the streets.
  • RyanDS 5 Feb 2014 16:21:46 14,073 posts
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    imamazed wrote:
    CaptainKerbal wrote:
    Anyway enjoy your day off / "strike" .....
    Again, it's not a day off; striking staff are not paid and, in fact, a lot of them will be helping out in union duties.
    I also take unpaid holiday sometimes when the weather forecast is bad and I feel like a day in bed.

    Scum.
  • Inertia 5 Feb 2014 16:32:35 697 posts
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    @Khanivor


    Do we take that attitude of over-inflated pay to the whole market then? They hardly earn ridiculous sums of money. I would say they earn a reasonable wage. Just because other people's wages are unreasonable isn't a valid argument to bring everyone down to their level. It might even suggest that we need unions in more industries to counter the lowest common denominator logic of global markets.

    As technology or technics is a process to increase efficiency then ultimately we are all going to get poorer except for the management structure that organise these efficiencies. There is a point when efficiency becomes antisocial. But you'll never see that argument being made in the media.
  • Deleted user 5 February 2014 18:00:33
    surely over inflated pay isn't a fixed value; it's a dynamic figure judged relative to social peers.

    I agree that, if anything, the poor are disproportionately paid too little, but that is surely indicative of a wider social problem that requires a wider social solution.
  • Khanivor 5 Feb 2014 18:07:11 44,800 posts
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    I think the argument that efficiency is anti-social has been made since the invention of the plow.
  • Inertia 5 Feb 2014 18:52:56 697 posts
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    @Khanivor

    It has been made, normally in the negative i.e Luddites. Nobel prize winning economists have made the argument too. But it isn't engaged with. Efficiencies in business are seen as a positive. You won't rise through the ranks proposing ways to make your business more inefficient. Technology has become synonymous with progress. And the two go hand in hand with modern business and economic practices.

    No one discusses the outcomes of excessive efficiency. But everywhere you here the argument, positively, for them. I just have the feeling that technique has got ahead of us, and through technology, we are making a society we have an antipathy towards.

    "If we are to create balanced human beings, capable of entering into world-wide co-operation with all other men of good will — and that is the supreme task of our generation, and the foundation of all its other potential achievements — we must give as much weight to the arousal of the emotions and to the expression of moral and esthetic values as we now give to science, to invention, to practical organization. One without the other is impotent."

    -Lewis Mumford
  • RyanDS 5 Feb 2014 19:18:30 14,073 posts
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    When you are taking about the daily travel of fifteen million people versus 1000 overpaid people demanding more benefits than the general population enjoys I personally would rather side with the fifteen million who would benefit from better efficiency.
  • spindizzy 5 Feb 2014 19:51:27 7,755 posts
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    Inertia wrote:
    @Khanivor

    It has been made, normally in the negative i.e Luddites. Nobel prize winning economists have made the argument too. But it isn't engaged with. Efficiencies in business are seen as a positive. You won't rise through the ranks proposing ways to make your business more inefficient. Technology has become synonymous with progress. And the two go hand in hand with modern business and economic practices.

    Sorry, just to be clear - are you saying that people should be proposing ways to make business more inefficient? I could understand the argument that efficiency isn't everything, but how can efficiency ever NOT be a positive?

    Countless industries have died because times move on, but tough. It's just what happens and it's not like there aren't other jobs out there...
  • elstoof 5 Feb 2014 21:51:24 28,125 posts
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    Inertia wrote:


    "If we are to create balanced human beings, capable of entering into world-wide co-operation with all other men of good will — and that is the supreme task of our generation, and the foundation of all its other potential achievements — we must give as much weight to the arousal of the emotions and to the expression of moral and esthetic values as we now give to science, to invention, to practical organization. One without the other is impotent."

    -Lewis Mumford
    The lyrics aren't much cop without the banjo or vocal harmonies.
  • Khanivor 5 Feb 2014 23:44:03 44,800 posts
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    Inertia wrote:
    You won't rise through the ranks proposing ways to make your business more inefficient.
    No shit. Well, unless you are Bob Crow.
  • chopsen 6 Feb 2014 07:46:17 21,958 posts
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    Inertia wrote:
    No one discusses the outcomes of excessive efficiency. But everywhere you here the argument, positively, for them.
    Think you're experiencing confirmatory bias here. It's a point that gets made often. Even the Economist, hardly a left leaning mag, had a cover story on it the other week.

    So should we be arguing for the return of manned telephone exchanges? The outlawing of the tractor? Where do you draw the line here? Let's make all goods to be bought and sold be individually hand made. Nobody could afford to buy a car or a fridge, but think of the jobs it would create!

    (btw, not a strawman, it's a reductio ad absurdum of the position that efficiency is inherently bad)
  • PazJohnMitch 6 Feb 2014 08:15:45 17,276 posts
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    In a craft based industry a reduction in efficiency can be good. Hand made items are more unique and personalised than a machine manufactured one that is identical to all others. So pottery, fashion etc can benefit from reduced technology.

    Honestly do not think it applies to the tube. Although it would in some areas if those employed were friendlier and did not see the public as an inconvenience. Sadly the pay packet bursting rewards of previous strikes has made all tube employees feel entitled and therefore superior to the people they were originally intended to help.
  • disusedgenius 6 Feb 2014 08:35:22 10,677 posts
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    I suspect that their sense of entitlement is directly linked to their bargaining ability (i.e. the extent that the city relies on their service). No different to the rest of us, they just happen to have their shit together.
  • elstoof 6 Feb 2014 09:48:02 28,125 posts
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    I make luxury goods by hand for a living, it's really not comparable to the tube strikes in the slightest.

    If no one appreciates my output enough that they're willing to pay me for it, I don't earn money. I don't get to throw a public hissy fit about it.

    Edited by elstoof at 10:12:48 06-02-2014
  • Dougs 7 Feb 2014 13:11:09 100,414 posts
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    This could mean a whole load of fun....!
    http://londonist.com/2014/02/tube-revenue-strikes-friday-and-next-week.php
  • danathjo 7 Feb 2014 13:18:10 8,294 posts
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    Did that actually happen today? I take the train in myself and it was (delayed) business as usual.
  • Dougs 7 Feb 2014 13:59:40 100,414 posts
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    I've no idea, interesting idea though. Far more likely to gain favour with the public (who doesn't like free travel!) and get TfL/Mayor round the table by hitting them where it hurts, but I have no idea how legal it is. Not very would be my guess
  • Deleted user 7 February 2014 19:45:47
    Bob Crow; the man who lives in a council house.
  • FWB 7 Feb 2014 19:48:30 56,369 posts
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    Dougs wrote:
    This could mean a whole load of fun....!
    http://londonist.com/2014/02/tube-revenue-strikes-friday-and-next-week.php
    Well that's sounds nice and legal. Stealing from your employer.
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