Nixta Sinks

Like the tube service tomorrow, my patience is running thin. Yeah yeah, you're thinking, stop moaning Nixta. Ordinarily my communist upbringing would bring me down firmly on the side of the union members, but after not turning up to arbitration talks today, choosing a cold New Year's Eve, and following hot on the heels of the Transit Union's unofficial strike last week in New York (while I was in New York, I might add), I'm a tad miffed.

Latest news is that London Underground will try to run as good a service as it can despite 4000 idle tossers not turning up to work. Their bosses are more to blame than anyone of course, just as in New York. In New York, the strike was illegal, because the one union covers all public transport. Don't talk to me about what's wrong with *that* setup. There's obviously something suspect there, but those mafia heads runnign the union bosses won't allow discussion on the topic. In New York, the leaders were threatened with gaol time, and the union itself fined a million dollars a day (which they don't have, and the fines in the end will no doubt amount to little more than a slap on the wrists rather than the punch in the nuts they should be). Of course, that was easy to justify because the law was very clear. What's not so clear is how union members are supposed to voice their protests if negotiations with the MTA don't work, but that's another story and right now I'm pissed off with the gits.

Here in the UK, it's clear the unions aren't interested in much more than putting their feet up and pissing people off. Their bosses won't even talk to the RMT with regard to persuading them to change the problematic rosta for New Year's Eve. Even if the RMT said "No, no way, never", all the union has to do is talk to them at every opportunity and the public will sympathise with any strike. That they won't even return to ACAS shows they just don't care, and that's going to piss a lot of Londoners off.

The result of the New York strike was general irritation. After all, MTA employees get better benefits than most people. Our BA ticket agent at JFK, full of Christmas spirit, grumbled at the quite improbable detail that his daughter (who works in the health industry) has worse healthcare than the MTA employees who went on strike at the fact that their employers had made a large one-off profit and weren't sharing it out as unsustainable pensions increases.

The result of London's strike will be general irritation. What's so irresponsible is that people will be standing in the cold and rain when they should be on a train going home, at a time when people are drunk and stupid anyway. Utterly despicable behaviour from the Unions.

Bring on the robot army of subway drivers.

Update: Turns out it wasn't that cold after all, and as usual the forecast got it wrong and it didn't rain (well, a tiny bit at aroun 2am). Also, the trains were pretty much running, just with unmanned stations. Hmmm. I wonder... Can LU now fire 4000 slackers?