Tube Strike (Was: [ANNOUNCE] [SOCIAL] Social at Dirty Dicks, Thursday 6th September)

[Peter Corlett]

On Mon, Sep 03, 2007 at 10:14:37AM +0100, Iain Tatch wrote:
[...]
> London's a lot bigger than Zone 1 though. Unless you're a tourist, or one
> of the tiny minority who live in the centre. Even Zone 1's quite a size as
> anyone who took to shank's pony on 07/07/05 will attest.

I thought I'd break out the bike in anticipation of chaos this evening, and
this route:

http://abuse.mooli.org.uk/20070903T0900.jpg

took me about 50 minutes despite me being completely out of shape and having
to stop occasionally to pick up bits that fell off the bike. The Tube takes
50 minutes on a good day. I don't think I'll be using the Tube as much any
more now I know that. (I'll probably just make sure I ride near the Tube
lines which take bikes so I can get home when something important falls
off.)

[...]
> Of course as with all these things there's a lot of brinksmanship on both
> sides. I think there's a better-than-evens chance the strike will get
> called off shortly before 6pm. With both sides claiming a victory, no
> doubt.

I can't help thinking that the unions are being somewhat unreasonable about
all of this, although that seems to be the main purpose of unions IMO. The
employer has gone bust, and in any other industry that's game over and
they're all looking for jobs. TFL have also made this statement, which seems
clear enough and quite fair:

   "Both the Mayor and the direct employers, the Administrator and Metronet,
    have given the trades unions clear written assurances that meet all of
    their concerns, namely that there will be no job cuts or transfers as a
    result of the collapse of Metronet and no loss of pensions now or at any
    time in the future.

   "London Underground, Metronet, the Administrator and ACAS all yesterday
    asked Bob Crow what further assurances the RMT is seeking. There has
    been no response.

   "We are still prepared to meet any reasonable requests to meet first
    thing or throughout today, as it is clearly unreasonable to proceed with
    a strike when all of the trades unions' concerns have been met, and
    without the RMT informing us what they seek to achieve."