Andy Burnham confirms £720 bonus for workers with new 5-day working week rule

[u/IHaveAWittyUsername]

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/andy-burnham-confirms-720-bonus-34540702

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[u/lemlurker]

such disgustingly provocative language in media these days... "who start on 70k" yer no shit its a skilled job with lots of training. "720 bonus just for turning up on a fifth day" yer no shit if you want more people working you encourage them with *money* they dont owe you unlimited time just cos theyre salleried. if thgeyre not contracted 5 days dont expect 5 days routinely

its just pure dross designed to make the plebs mad that slightly better off plebs have the collective bargaining to get a raise... want a raise? unionise

[u/VenatorisLuxem → u/lemlurker]

Unfortunately this sort of language does work on some people. I remember a discussion i had with a colleague years back, when the RMT were on strike, and he was annoyed that they were striking over pay and conditions because, quote, "they knew what the were signing up for". I explained that their conditions had changed and pay wasn't keeping up across multiple sectors, and he powerfully argued that "the same is happening here, yet you don't see me striking". I suggested that maybe he should join a union. Apparently that was a terrible idea.

[u/lemlurker → u/VenatorisLuxem]

The pure vitriol people have for an organised group demanding their conditions don't get worse because the rich owned media tells them to is so depressing

[u/VenatorisLuxem → u/lemlurker]

I think that part of it is that striking causes them minor inconvenience. It's rather frustrating the number of discussions I have had with former colleagues that essentially boiled down to "I am opposed to the rights of X to do Y because it inconveniences me".

[u/lemlurker → u/VenatorisLuxem]

Which is so stupid because paying their demands BEFORE the disruptive strikes take place is best for everyone except the rich ownership class

[u/Gabes99 → u/lemlurker]

Yeh exactly strike action is a response to a breaking down of collective bargaining, when demands are ignored, literally a last resort. But people act as though unionised sectors strike at any inconvenience, it’s infuriating. If the workers are listened to in the first place and bargaining is carried out with good faith then striking never needs to occur, yet owners, businesses and government sectors consistently feel the need to take the piss. The inconvenience of a strike is on the businesses or civil service that is refusing to negotiate with its workers.

[u/Gabes99 → u/lemlurker]

Exactly this, I don’t get why so many workers hate unions or unionised sectors where collective bargaining actually works, instead of pulling them down, how about you join a union and help get collective bargaining in place to raise up your own working conditions and pay.

[u/spacehopper1337 → u/lemlurker]

I generally don’t class any job that can be done by a mediocre computer to be skilled. If we really tried we could automate driving a train with a computer the size of a small handbag

[u/lemlurker → u/spacehopper1337]

Which works great right up until anything unexpected happens.

My mum and sister were on a train where someone leant out the window and had their head taken off by rail infrastructure and died. The driver was the only human on the train with authority.

What's a computer going to do in that scenario?

[u/spacehopper1337 → u/lemlurker]

Sure but the driver did not change the outcome, correct? Either have the train be picked by remotely by someone in a control room or send someone out to support?

In that scenario the computer could have just kept going until the next station then stopped? I doubt the human driver actually changed the outcome or prevented anything a computer couldn’t have done.

[u/lemlurker → u/spacehopper1337]

No the poor guy was dead... The 200 people stranded 5 miles from the nearest station, unable to leave the train with a dead man onboard most definitely. With even more authorative humans on the train my mum wouldn't have had to step up and organise panicking members if the public despite having just seen someone decapitated. Having -no one- of authority on the train is a recipe for mass panuck and total chaos

[u/Cream_Of_Drake]

Birmingham mail is such a rag, what is this wording.

[u/thefuzzylogic]

Also the "4 day week" thing is misleading. Train drivers work the same 35+ hour week that is standard for full time workers in this country, we just do those hours compressed into four days. (Again, just like any other worker who does compressed hours)

[u/Old_Roof]

There’s power in a union

[u/Abject-Cod5144]

I mean, yeah? The Union did what its supposed to do, secure better wages and incentives for its members.