what advice would you give RMT unioin

[grantzer]

Network Rail is an arms length independently run body which is ultimately own by the Dept of Transport ie us the people. All the surplus they earn is reinvested in the rail network.

Sorry. You are correct. I meant to ask about the companies who pay network rail for their services,and got a bit over excited.....my bad

[BCram]

Let's hope Islay can do his company house research and answer the points you made with reference to the rail franchise holders. Scottish Government has taken them back into public ownership so it might be revealing to compare the financial performance pre covid and in their last year of operation before being taken over by the Scottish Government. Think Nicola had no option but to step in but it's the comparison of financial performance which would be most interesting.

[frankiekopel]

I'll never agree with a union supporter on the usefulness or relevance of the role of trades unions. Both myself and my wife have been let down very badly in the past by unions and neither of us would ever consider joining any union ever again.

My opinion, and I fully appreciate the opinion of anyone who disagrees, is that unions are not there to support the members but to allow the more senior representatives to get feet under the table with management for their own purposes. After I left the union my career took off, partly because I wasn't being held back by the collective, and I ended up a manager involved in discussions with union reps. It's amazing how complicit they become when the offer of 3% for the members is extended to be higher for Shop Stewards.

Self serving, greedy and selfish are just three of the qualities required to rise to the top in a trades union in my experience.

If I'm reading this correctly, and apologies if I have read this wrongly ,if shop stewards are being offered a bigger wage rise than ordinary workers this is totally illegal and both the person or company offering this is breaking the law ,and if accepted by the stewards they are also breaking the law ,I was on the national committee for a union for around 20 years and can honestly say no employer ever ever offered a bribe to any member of the union ,

[islaydarkblue]

Again I agree but it would have taken a bit of bottle to go against the "lockdown or else" mantra that all the big european countries and the usa were taking.
Unfortunately both the uk and scottish leader just went with the flow and same small number of advisers instead of looking at other options.

Bigger fool them.
When I was a pupil at school scientists were known as mad scientists and after their shambolic advice regarding dealing with Covid I see no reason to change my views.

[islaydarkblue]

He could,and maybe he did. What he is actually doing is his job,and presenting the views of his members.

And clearly the only reason people don't use trains is because they work from home. That can be the only possible reason.

Admittedly it is one of the reasons,but by no means the only reason.

Did that article mention the salary of the network rail boss btw? Or how much profit it made during the pandemic? How much it paid to its shareholders?

Network Rail does not have shareholders and it does not pay a dividend.
Steve Montgomery who is the Chairman of the Rail Delivery Group was previously managing director of Scotrail. https://www.scotsman.com/news/transp...er-all-1509253

[islaydarkblue]

If I'm reading this correctly, and apologies if I have read this wrongly ,if shop stewards are being offered a bigger wage rise than ordinary workers this is totally illegal and both the person or company offering this is breaking the law ,and if accepted by the stewards they are also breaking the law ,I was on the national committee for a union for around 20 years and can honestly say no employer ever ever offered a bribe to any member of the union ,

My wife worked in NCR which for many years was a closed shop. This meant that every employee had to join a Union whether they wanted to or not. In the Cash a lot of the shop stewards got the better paid jobs.

[islaydarkblue]

Let's hope Islay can do his company house research and answer the points you made with reference to the rail franchise holders. Scottish Government has taken them back into public ownership so it might be revealing to compare the financial performance pre covid and in their last year of operation before being taken over by the Scottish Government. Think Nicola had no option but to step in but it's the comparison of financial performance which would be most interesting.

Abelio who had the Scotrail contract are a Dutch owned company so it is doubtful if their annual accounts will be posted on the Companies House website.
Abelio’s contract for running Scotrail was due to end in 2023 but Nicola Sturgeon thought that her government could do a better job running Scotrail themselves.
Abelio did not put up a fight as they were probably delighted to get rid of running Scotrail and let the Scottish Government make a hash of running Scotrail themselves.
I have previously read in the Sunday Times newspaper that the Scottish Government should have run Scotrail in tandem with Abelio for the last year of Abelio’s contract so that there was a smooth handover.
You would have assumed that Nicola Sturgeon had learnt from her Scottish Government’s shambolic running of Calmac Ferries and CMAL and she should have left a private operator to run Scotrail.
However Nicola never learnt from her mistakes.
Earlier this week I discovered some interesting information which a member of the Scottish Government ferries unit based in Glasgow submitted to the Islands Connectivity Plan which is the new Scottish Government name for the Ferries Review.
However that is worth a separate topic on its own.

[Deeranged]

If I'm reading this correctly, and apologies if I have read this wrongly ,if shop stewards are being offered a bigger wage rise than ordinary workers this is totally illegal and both the person or company offering this is breaking the law ,and if accepted by the stewards they are also breaking the law ,I was on the national committee for a union for around 20 years and can honestly say no employer ever ever offered a bribe to any member of the union ,

Hilarious, absolutely fkn hilarious. Illegal, doesn't happen? On a union national committeee for 20 years and not a clue what's hapening in the real world - pretty much one of the points I was making. The fat cats representing their own perception of what the members want. Did your national committee appreciate tht all people want to do is work and not to strike or take other costly industrial action?

Going on strike because 51% of those that submitted ballots opted for industrial action when only 60% of the members actually voted is not representing members, it's having an agenda and creating a mandate to force it.

[Deeranged]

Abelio who had the Scotrail contract are a Dutch owned company so it is doubtful if their annual accounts will be posted on the Companies House website.
Abelio’s contract for running Scotrail was due to end in 2023 but Nicola Sturgeon thought that her government could do a better job running Scotrail themselves.
Abelio did not put up a fight as they were probably delighted to get rid of running Scotrail and let the Scottish Government make a hash of running Scotrail themselves.
I have previously read in the Sunday Times newspaper that the Scottish Government should have run Scotrail in tandem with Abelio for the last year of Abelio’s contract so that there was a smooth handover.
You would have assumed that Nicola Sturgeon had learnt from her Scottish Government’s shambolic running of Calmac Ferries and CMAL and she should have left a private operator to run Scotrail.
However Nicola never learnt from her mistakes.
Earlier this week I discovered some interesting information which a member of the Scottish Government ferries unit based in Glasgow submitted to the Islands Connectivity Plan which is the new Scottish Government name for the Ferries Review.
However that is worth a separate topic on its own.

See when Abelio's franchise stopped, and The Scottish Government took over, did all the managerial and operational staff leave with Abelio and were they replaced by Scottish Government staff or was it effectively the same people that continued to manage day to day operations? How can you blame branding for such a perceived massive difference in how a company is performing?

Truth is Abelio were making as much of a balls of it as the Scottish Government is, there's actually little if any difference. See when you 'discovered some interesting information which a member of the Scottish Government ferries unit based in Glasgow submitted to the Islands Connectivity Plan' did you look to try to confirm the validity of the information at all? Or did you just assume your source was correct?

If it said in The Sunday Times that Dundee FC should have thrown the play off games against Kilmarnock, or that Islay Dark Bkue should throw himelf off the Tay Road Bridge, would you take these statements as absolute truth and would you jump? For someone that reputedly does his research you really don't have much of a clue do you?

[frankiekopel]

Hilarious, absolutely fkn hilarious. Illegal, doesn't happen? On a union national committeee for 20 years and not a clue what's hapening in the real world - pretty much one of the points I was making. The fat cats representing their own perception of what the members want. Did your national committee appreciate tht all people want to do is work and not to strike or take other costly industrial action?

Going on strike because 51% of those that submitted ballots opted for industrial action when only 60% of the members actually voted is not representing members, it's having an agenda and creating a mandate to force it.

our national committee had 1 strike vote in 20 years ,after the members had rejected the same final offer twice ,which had been recommended for acceptance by the union ,we had no other option but have a strike vote ,which the members decided not to strike ,so the wage offer they had rejected twice was then accepted, bet there's not many on here have taken part in a strike ,I haven't,
Ps I still worked on the shop floor while serving on the national committee, so knew what the members wanted