Power to Mick Lynch

dLockers said:
Yeah but you aren't demonstrating you understand a thing when you play it back like you have done. Then you froth at the messenger being a Labour sub-reddit.
Click to expand...

He hasn't got time to fact check his position when he's got to do some internet stalking of people who question his views.
 
Fascinating thread.

On the 6th anniversary of the EU referendum, it's intriguing to see certain posters telling us how awful a group of people are on the basis they voted to do something that harms the country's prosperity and inconveniences their fellow citizens.

giphy.webp
 
Werewolf said:
Trains are in some ways easier (they're on tracks), but at the same time also more difficult, if your car suddenly realises that something is in the way it can usually stop in a couple of dozen meters without hurting the occupants or turning over, a train that may weigh several hundred tons minimum, with a large number of people who are at best sat down without restraints is likely to have some serious issues if it tries to stop too fast because it's only just become aware of something.
It's also worth remembering that automated cars are being designed with the idea of basically just automating one thing, with trains you need to do pretty much the entire network, not just a train, but all the signalling and stations etc need have work to make it possible.
Click to expand...
Big difference between automation for the road and the underground is that you can control the entire underground environment, automated rolling stock plus "intelligent" tunnels, at which point being able to detect track hazards and alert on coming trains is doable.
With road, and over ground rail, that isn't easily achievable hence the massive increase in hazard variables and complexity.

Werewolf said:
As someone said it's far more simple to do when you're building from scratch, but large parts of our rail infrastructure were built 100+ years ago, we've got things like stations that took decades of upgrades to make them more accessable to disabled people (IIRC one of the London stations had work going on for about 3-5 years to put in a new overhead bridge with lifts), or to modernise the platforms so it was safer/easier for disabled people to get on the trains.
Then you've got things like the underground stations where they've struggled to fit in modern signalling, let alone any form of automated gates to stop people falling on the track.
Click to expand...
One of the biggest issues with London is the mixture of rolling stock that merge on some of the lines (Piccadilly springs to mind) and as you say, they've had issues upgrade signalling in the past on certain lines.
But TFL has had the DLR for 30-odd-years, so rail automation certainly isn't new to them and globally, i believe three or four undergrounds have been converted and Glasgow is looking to become fully automated soon (albeit with drivers using new rolling stock until platform barriers have been installed).
Not a cheap nor something easily achieved overnight but it still baffles me that there's a fair few making excuses or against the idea when it would massively improve travel in the cities that have it.
 
Roar87 said:
If Elon Musk.....someone who is quite obviously secure, hard working and successful though.
Click to expand...
Off topic but i applaud what Musk has done for the EV, Space (especially) and renewable industries but you only have to hear and read some of the guff he's said in the past to realise he's far from secure. Hard work and successful, sure, but secure....

cant-decide-gif-11.gif
 
When anyone outside the rail industry says it’s easy to make trains automated, I just roll my eyes because it just demonstrates their ignorance.

A fully automated, national railway network even in say 40 years is improbable. It’s financial pie in the sky. It’s also a little silly to use it as some kind of threat against workers rights to withhold labour. Have the Japanese converted an existing mainline to automatic? Not metro or light rail but a mainline where freight mixes with intercity that mixes with local services? The answer is no, no one has.

Unless you rip everything up and start again, it ain’t happening whilst any of us are alive. NR are making a few tentative steps towards a moving block signalling system but it’s still well in its infancy and will be decades before we see it in any meaningful form and even then will still have a driver on the front.

People like to bring up DLR but even that has a service agent on each train to operate the doors, oversee the safety of station operations and to drive the train manually if and when required.

The technology to automate mass transit/light rail systems from a basic practical perspective has been around for well over a century. The hurdle in implementing it has been how it handles abnormal operations and what happens when the automation fails or exceeds its abilities. And that hasn't yet been satisfactorily solved - it's the same hurdle facing truly autonomous aircraft and road vehicles. They all rely on a human operator as a fall-back.
 
Roar87 said:
They're striking because they are unhappy with their pay, despite the fact they overpaid. They have been on strike numerous times over the past 5 years. The service they provide is terrible, the problems are at every level of the train company. If it were up to me I'd sack every single person who works for the rail network and start from scratch because those companies are rotten.



Tesla has become the most valuable car company in the world in under 20 years, so incredible is how I would say it's going considering how wildly successful and revolutionary the company is. They're even doing a great thing for the environment and pushing new technology forward. Nothing is enough for the hammer and sickle bunch though if the owner is worth a bit too much money.
Click to expand...

Feel I'm qualified to comment on this as I spent 2 days on the picket lines this week. We're not on strike because of money, pretty much everyone I know voted overwhelmingly for strike action to protect their jobs from these planned job cuts that will come at the cost of safety. In the 22 years I've worked for Network Rail I've been on strike twice, not once has it been because of pay.
Notice your profile has your location as Leeds, I'll be on the picket line at Wakefield tomorrow, come on down and speak with some of the folk and ask why they've taken this action. We're a friendly bunch. You can tell us why you feel we are **** too while you're there.
 
Last edited:
Once again I am amazed there is even a debate, but its ocuk ...........

Quite simply, if one human being takes home more money than the entire work force combined, or even takes home 20% of the rest of the entire work force, its obscene greed.

We are entering the age of mass strikes which I for one fully support, we need to collapse the system, & make everyone realise its truly a crime to own so much money it would solve all the worlds problems, the enemies of humanity are the grotesquely rich, and always have been - hoarding obscene wealth is quite literally robbing your fellow man.

Anyone with over a few million needs to pay 100% tax, you simply don't need more than that to live an absurdly comfortable life.

Sadly many of the working class, of which 99.99999% of the people on this forum are, are somewhat brain washed and deluded to think this is a 'crazy' idea.
 
Combat squirrel said:
Once again I am amazed there is even a debate, but its ocuk ...........

Quite simply, if one human being takes home more money than the entire work force combined, or even takes home 20% of the rest of the entire work force, its obscene greed.

We are entering the age of mass strikes which I for one fully support, we need to collapse the system, & make everyone realise its truly a crime to own so much money it would solve all the worlds problems, the enemies of humanity are the grotesquely rich, and always have been - hoarding obscene wealth is quite literally robbing your fellow man.

Anyone with over a few million needs to pay 100% tax, you simply don't need more than that to live an absurdly comfortable life.

Sadly many of the working class, of which 99.99999% of the people on this forum are, are somewhat brain washed and deluded to think this is a 'crazy' idea.
Click to expand...
The union leader makes £125k a year. Is that too much?
 
While it's a noble thought, you will always need absurdly rich people to drive business and the economy.

WW3 would start before we have any sort of mass equality, it's not sustainable in any form (for obvious reasons).
 
Robbo said:
While it's a noble thought, you will always need absurdly rich people to drive business and the economy.

WW3 would start before we have any sort of mass equality, it's not sustainable in any form (for obvious reasons).
Click to expand...
Nonsense. The absurdly rich need everyone else to get and maintain their absurd levels of wealth.
 
dowie said:
LOL yup, I note the redundancies are voluntary redundancies and they've had 5000 volunteers:

www.telegraph.co.uk

Rail workers inundate voluntary redundancy scheme – despite strikes over job cuts

More than 5,000 applications to quit cast doubt over rationale behind summer travel chaos
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk

The shift pay argument seems fair enough if that's true, the stuff about new roles is suspect, I suspect individuals aren't getting their/ grades downgraded but rather new staff will be.

If you've automated a ticket office etc.. but pledged not to lay people off (save for voluntary redundancies) then you'll have to find other roles for people. I suspect that going forwards, with modernisation, some roles/pay grades won't be needed.

It just seems like a mix, some of it is reasonable grievances some of it is a bunch of Luddites contributing to inefficiency.
Click to expand...
The part referring to removal of the operative grade is 100% correct, I've seen the consultation documents. All existing operatives will be moved to the new "assistant technician" role paid at market rate.....no indication has been given yet what market rate will be, unsure where the £9000 pay cut has come from. The rest of it is pretty much spot on.
 
Combat squirrel said:
Once again I am amazed there is even a debate, but its ocuk ...........

Quite simply, if one human being takes home more money than the entire work force combined, or even takes home 20% of the rest of the entire work force, its obscene greed.

We are entering the age of mass strikes which I for one fully support, we need to collapse the system, & make everyone realise its truly a crime to own so much money it would solve all the worlds problems, the enemies of humanity are the grotesquely rich, and always have been - hoarding obscene wealth is quite literally robbing your fellow man.

Anyone with over a few million needs to pay 100% tax, you simply don't need more than that to live an absurdly comfortable life.

Sadly many of the working class, of which 99.99999% of the people on this forum are, are somewhat brain washed and deluded to think this is a 'crazy' idea.
Click to expand...

This is basically complete non-sense that would take a while to deconstruct. How do you propose to tax someone owning a company and selling their shares in it, if the tax was 100% then no one would sell shares? If their company becomes too valuable should they be forced to sell shares? What if your house becomes too valuable, will the tax man also come? If not then they could just buy property. If they can come for your property, then you've basically decided the state should be able to confiscate private property, presumably by force? You realise you're creating a huge sum of problems simply because you don't like people being "too" rich (by your arbitrary sum of "few of million"? As a society our standard of living has never been higher, despite your envy regarding other people's wealth, you actually have an insanely high standard of living compared with any other time in history, or almost any other place. Yet still people complain.

Try to understand that no one is poor because Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk created companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people, pay billions in tax, and create vast amounts of economic activity. It is actually quite the opposite.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom