Really? Can you explain why?

Given that 7mins has been defending his point of view on the back of clearly having knowledge of the industry, why do you propose postmen, for instance, should go on strike in support of a dispute they don't understand? Fundamentally it would be "we are going on strike because our friends have asked us to" which carries no merit at all, and smacks of just "sticking it to the man" for the sake of it.

I'm a Southern commuter, and just want it over - I really don't care who 'wins'. Southern are a crock of sh*t, but then I certainly see the argument for "why should we cancel a service because the guard is sick / stuck elsewhere, when the driver could do the doors, so he's not actually required to do anything on a normal journey"

Edit: just for clarity - I accept the safety argument, but as someone stated, we compromise safety in every walk of life every day, which is why we don't have a guard on every carriage or a fire station on every street. I don't know enough to know when an acceptable risk becomes an unacceptable one. That's just to caveat the idea of running a train without a guard in exceptional circumstances (i.e. when the guards are on strike, or when a particular guard has called in sick or been unable to meet the correct train)

Edited by npn (08 Dec 2016 12.43pm)

Aslef news

Mick Whelan, general secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers' union, has written to the Daily Telegraph today in response to a piece the paper published written by Nick Herbert, Tory MP for Arundel & South Downs.

Mr Herbert seeks to blame everyone for the failings of Southern Railways except those who are really to blame – the management team at the company, known to long-suffering passengers as Southern Failways.

We have done our best to reach a sensible and workable compromise with Southern in the interests of passengers and management) as well as of staff. We have always been happy to talk, and we have always believed it is, or should be, possible to do a deal – just as we did with ScotRail in Scotland –­ but it takes two to tango and the company has never been prepared to negotiate with us.

Because the company cares only about profit, and not about passengers. The company knows, as we know,that there are serious problems with the platform/train interface and that DOO,on these lines, is inherently unsafe.

It has been our policy for more than 15 years to try to eradicate driver only operation. DOO is old, not new, technology, designed for four-car 317s on the Bedford to St Pancras line in the early 1980s when it was all about managed decline at the fag end of British Rail. But an increase in the number of passengers we are carrying on the railway every day means there are 1,100 passengers on a 12 car train in peak travelling time and just two seconds to check 24 sets of doors and that’s simply not adequate to deal safely and properly with the travelling public.

TaxiMark
Sheffield Wednesday Fan
Posted 23 February 2013 - 07:49 PM
I don't mind palace to be fair. Much better club than tinpot Charlton and Brighton

We all know if Hoof was in a room on his own he'd still have an argument! ! Feed the beast and he'll chomp till the cows come home; )

TaxiMark
Sheffield Wednesday Fan
Posted 23 February 2013 - 07:49 PM
I don't mind palace to be fair. Much better club than tinpot Charlton and Brighton

ASLEF win court case, strikes to go ahead.

My guess is, GTR will let the first strike happen, to see how strong the walk out is.

Will be interesting to see if DfT come under pressure to accept the scotrail deal. Massive climb down if they do.

Wonderful. Three days of no work for me and many others then

Indeed.

7mins as someone with the knowledge in the sector (don't want that to come across as sarcy, genuinely interested), LU runs with no guards and must have more (if not a similar) number of passengers on it's services. I assume there are other rail networks in the country without guards?

1) have they experienced significant safety issues not seen on southern as a result of southern having guards?

2) if this is such a material safety issue why aren't we seeing strikes across all those networks where guards don't exist?