Maybe everybody should get a 20% wage rise. Would the RMT be happy with that?
The RMT are asking for 7%. Inflation is now 9.1% and predicted 11% by the end of the year. Unlike many people, many RMT membere, such as the signallers, fo example, can't just change employers - there is only one employer, Network Rail.
I have no sympathy with the RMT, they are reported to be some of the highest paid in industry...
By who? The Tory press? As stated by someone else (and the BBC), for starters the RMT doesn't actually represent the train drivers - most of them belong to ASLEF (who aren't on strike). So Shapps trotting that figure out in interviews is him actively seeking to mislead. Shapps has also stated that rail workers salaries have increased 40% in the last 10 years - another blatant lie, when the ONS states that the figure is actually 24%. Or roughly analogous to the increases of the incomes of the population as a whole (23%).
In fact the RMT represents the cleaners, booking office staff, maintenance staff, signallers, etc who most certainly
aren't on £60 to £80k. According to the ONS the
median salary of rail workers excluding train and tram drivers is £36.8k, but that figure doesn't include a lot of lower paid roles such as carriage cleaners, part time workers, etc - if you include those then the median wage
of RMT members is £31k according to the RMT (although the BBC get a
figure of £33k)
Talk of making it possible for agency workers to cover for those on strike.
And how does that work for railway signallers? A number of weeks ago
one signaller went sick at Preston and the entire Leeds to Manchester service via Bradford crashed for about 6 hours (no trains at all, then a partial service for the rest of the day). This was because they have no spare signallers at all in holiday periods. Also, not all these roles can be filled by temporary agency staff. The safety training standards of track maintenance staff and signallers, for example, require a LOT of training and keeping up to date with their certification which few if any temps could manage. This means that agency staff won't hack it for the most safety critical roles
However, the RMT strikes are all about politics and little to do with the welfare of the union members.
The RMT strike was voted for by its' members. In other words
it was a democratic decision (you know, like voting for Brexit...) It isn't Arthur Scargill and the NUM trying to bring down the Tory government (although that moron Shapps would have you believe it is), it's about a union trying to safeguard its' members jobs and get a decent level of pay for them - especially the lowest paid in their ranks. In case you weren't aware, that's why trades unions exist
