London has been spared a pointless Underground strike this weekend by the RMT, but we can be sure that the threat of another strike is inevitable.A new think tank, Progressive Vision has decided that London has had enough of these incessant threats of strikes and decided it is time it is time to do something about it. Last week, they launched a campaign called Keep London Moving, seeking volunteers to step in to help run the Underground in the event of a future strike.
"We believe that if we can provide enough volunteers wishing to keep the Tube operating during the next strike, Transport for London and the unions will not be able to ignore us. We believe that a few thousand volunteers could – in theory – be enough to maintain a service on the Underground if the unions went on strike," says organiser Shane Frith. Presumably the volunteers won't be expected to drive the trains!
Frith continues: "We hope that the volunteers will never be needed and hope that extreme left-wing unions will be deterred by the presence of such a citizens’ campaign. This is an opportunity for Londoners to demonstrate their annoyance with the unions, TfL and appeasing politicians."
The campaign funded by private donations and has no association with TfL, London Underground or any mayoral candidate.
13 comments:
Presumably this was originally intended for April 1st.
This is the most nonsensical thing I have heard for some time. What do these people know about operating and safety procedures on the Underground or the maintenance of the system? Do they know how long it takes to train staff uo to an acceptable standard?
They are either mad or having a laugh.
Is this another belated April Fool ?
Iain, Shades of the Gneral Strike here with volunteers driving London Buses etc.
Actually the threat of picketing the homes of Tube Workers who threaten to strike may be a better way. Take it to them instead of them giving it to us all.
Trains don't need drivers.
It is perfectly feasible to automate them, as Docklands Light Rail has long ago done. This would allow single carriage units contantly & running much later, which in turn would mean more capacity & less waiting.
Right. Because how hard can it be to drive a train?
Jeez. What a bunch of fools.
Britain has a proud tradition of volunteering and this is a good extension of it. I bet that the basic training to be a tube driver doesn't take long.
The government actively encourages people to volunteer for other frontline work such as policing so why not tube driving? It would provide a bit of competition and accountability if nothing else.
JCB, no doubt an RMT activist, is right to raise the issue of health and safety with volunteers doing jobs currently run by trained professionals.
The risk though for the RMT in playing that line is that some of the jobs on the Underground, could in the words of the Amateur Transplants popular 'London Underground' song, "be done by a four-year old". You don't need much training to sell tickets or clean a platform for examples.
For the more complex jobs, Keep London Moving would need to persuade London Underground management to work with them to train what would in effect be a reserve force, much like the Territorial Army or Lifeboat service. Only driving trains and managing station safety is much less complex than fighting wars, or saving drowning seamen in stormy seas, and many of the likely volunteers would be already trained retired or ex-London Underground staff.
I think the notion then of a fully trained volunteer reserve force then does have some sense. Clearly the power of the RMT to create economic havoc in London, and hold the capital to ransom, more often than not in the cause of ramping up member's pay, under a fake pretext of health and safety concerns, needs to be broken. This proposal is welcome, even if London Underground management probably lack the balls to even attempt to start up such a reserve.
neil craig said...
"Trains don't need drivers."
And tracks, signals and rolling stock don't need maintenance?
Now this really is the people empowering themselves!
Brilliant!
Where can I train as a tube driver then?
Not a great suggestion, who is going to train these volunteers?
I would have more sympathy (from a baseline of none) with the strikers if they decided to open up the gates as a protest making travel free.
Safety and maintenance, eh? I don't know. I reckon almost anyone can do what most tube workers seem to do at any given station at any given time - congregate by the ticket barrier and chat among each other.
Seriously though, if proper maintenance were carried out, would we actually have such a messy, dysfunctional system? Oh yes, and the trains that were built to run automatically all have one and, sometimes, two people in the drivers' cabins because the unions refused to allow them to be put into action otherwise.
I seem to remember unions telling us that newspapers could never be printed without hot metal and with the use of computers. There were numerous people who believed them even then.
how hard can it be to drive a train?
On many lines the driving involves opening and closing the doors and pressing "go". The train then uses an automated system to control its speed between stops. Then the driver opens and closes the doors. The automated system could be installed on the other lines quite easily and cheaply - but guess why it isn't? That's right: the RMT want a closed shop. No surprises there.
New Britain, New Luddism.
Part of volunteering requires people to make themselves available for training. We wouldn’t want untrained people driving trains or manning the Tube.
I’m sure Bob Crow and friends will come up with many reasons why it has to take five years training before being able to work on the Tube, however this won’t deter us.
Don't forget to sign up.
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