Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I can't believe someone called "Bob Diamond" is being made CEO of Barclays. He sounds like an Essex gangster from the '80s. Maybe he is?
 

mrfaucet

The Ideas Train
He presented the Premiership trophy to Chelsea last season, but literally had no idea what was going on. "What is this field?", "Who are all these people?" sort of thing. Although his wikipedia says he's a Chelsea fan, but I can't believe that as he looked like one of the most confused people I've ever seen.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
He presented the Premiership trophy to Chelsea last season, but literally had no idea what was going on. "What is this field?", "Who are all these people?" sort of thing. Although his wikipedia says he's a Chelsea fan, but I can't believe that as he looked like one of the most confused people I've ever seen.

Maybe he just likes the Chelsea area of London. It's the natural habitat of the sort of person who might be made CEO of Barclays, after all.

Nice custom title, btw. :)
 

cobretti

[-] :: [-] ~ [-] :: [-]
The name Bob Diamond just makes me think he's going to look exactly like Billy Mitchell from The King Of Kong

billy_mitchell_perfect_pacman_cgeuk.bmp
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
My experience is that labour unions, especially those surrounding government jobs, are completely out of their minds and do not deserve your sympathy. The fare collectors for the Toronto Subway system can make wages comparable to those of University professors for a job that mainly requires a decent grasp of Grade 3 math. But of course the union still goes on strike and brings the city to a halt, fucking over so many more people who make so much less money at their jobs, and why? Because the mayor told them they can't cash in unused sick days.*

This in the middle of a recession! Like bus drivers, union leaders are cunts.

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*Edit: Or some such problem. I think this particular gripe is actually attributable to the strike enforced by the equally greedy unions that preside over the garbage men. The TTC one, I believe, was over a 3% increase in wages as well as some re-negotiating of benefits. As if being paid $100,000 to sleep in a chair and become belligerent when you are woken up is not a benefit in and of itself.
 
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massrock

Well-known member
Jebus man, I guess you're trolling.

Yes, everyone should stop standing up for rights / making demands of employers because there's always someone worse off or who gets paid less?

I'd say it's always good for anyone who isn't a super rich cunt, even if you think the ostensible issues are 'trivial', which they're not. There's always so far to go, how the heck is it 'greed'?

Anyway, aside from that I reckon people rather enjoy the disruption even if they're moaning about it. Breaks up the monotony.
 

massrock

Well-known member
Oh yes and people working hard at tedious jobs should obviously be paid fuck all anyway cos there's no 'skill' involved.
 

massrock

Well-known member
It's not surprising that people can be really short sighted and self-centred but it's like there's some Stockholm syndrome shit going on.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Oh yes and people working hard at tedious jobs should obviously be paid fuck all anyway cos there's no 'skill' involved.

Tube drivers are paid forty grand for a 35-hour week with a month's holiday a year and loads of benefits. Most people graduating right now who've studied hard for years can only dream of a job that cushy, if they can even get one at all. I know it's a damn sight more than I'm on.

Being a train driver can hardly be more tedious than being a shelf stacker or phone operator, and they sure as hell don't earn £40k. Just because you're a public sector employee (which I am, as it happens) that doesn't put you in some special catogory of being that is immune to economic reality and only ever strikes for righteously justified reasons. Let's not pretend this is Thatcher vs. the miners.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yes, everyone should stop standing up for rights / making demands of employers because there's always someone worse off or who gets paid less?

...many of whom have to get to work each day on the world's most expensive metro system?
 

massrock

Well-known member
So they are obliged to YOU personally to turn up to work and should be grateful for what they get for their time and effort because it's more than the pittance some others get?

And they should keep quiet because even though they are in a position to make demands because they are relatively organised, other groups of workers are not so fortunate?

Is 40k really a lot in absolute terms? And the really big question - what is this 'economic reality' exactly??? Mark Fisher to thread....

I can see why people get angry about this stuff. Do you really think that one group standing up, even (especially) on a matter of principle negatively impacts on others who can't or won't, aside from a couple of days 'inconvenience'? Surely it's precisely the opposite.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
40k is a lot when it's the salary of a few thousand people. And what "absolute terms" are we talking about here? It's well above the average wage in this country (let alone the median wage).

Where did I say anything about them being obliged to "me, personally"? We need them to get us around, they need us to buy tickets and pay their wages. It's a mutual relationship that gets strained when one side decides to take the piss.

Is 40k really a lot in absolute terms? And the really big question - what is this 'economic reality' exactly??? Mark Fisher to thread....

Good God man, think what you're saying! :eek:
 
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you

Well-known member
tea thats hilarious

i've been chuckling at this
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Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
At the risk of severely decreasing the chuckle-value of this chuckle-centric thread, I really mean no more than to say any group of workers griping in the middle of a recession about how they are mistreated at a job that pays them sometimes up to $100,000 annually plus health benefits, and paid sick days and vacations, is going to be taken as an insult by those who earn next to nothing working at jobs that sometimes require much higher qualifications.

Particularly when the demands of the former are actually directly affecting the latter in a negative way by driving up transit costs and fares to outrageous prices, and draining public funding away from other areas where the money would go a lot further for a much larger group of people. Not to mention that there is something sinister about an organization that can force all its workers, regardless of political or ethical stance on the motivating issue, to go on a general strike at risk otherwise of becoming a "scab."

It's like a fat kid demanding that he should get a larger share of the cake because he eats cake all the time.* You don't need to be Rush Limbaugh to see something wrong with that.

And that is all I'm going to say on this topic unless a seperate thread is created. Back to chuckling.

*An issue that would be resolved if there were an infinite amount of cakes, but the force of this argument, I think, is that there isn't.
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
To reiterate - the recent strike wasn't about pay.

The RMT has argued for a reduction in fares.

There isn't any evidence that people have been intimidated into striking.

"It isn't fair" gets trumpeted out every fucking time there is a tube strike, like people expect capitalism to be fair.

But recessions, job losses, pay freezes, all that stuff is fair and we just have to accept it - we're all in it together as a TEAM, from street sleepers right up to millionaires.

It's in all our TEAM interests for people at the top to extract as much profit as possible out of us, to get the economy going again.

But terribly unfair if we want to get paid more, keep our jobs, want to work less hard.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
This thread gets funnier with every post! :rolleyes:

(sorry John, all good points - though I think it's unfair to assume anyone who isn't 100% behind every TfL strike is necessarily a cheerleader for the free market...)
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Tube drivers are paid forty grand for a 35-hour week with a month's holiday a year and loads of benefits. Most people graduating right now who've studied hard for years can only dream of a job that cushy, if they can even get one at all. I know it's a damn sight more than I'm on.

Being a train driver can hardly be more tedious than being a shelf stacker or phone operator, and they sure as hell don't earn £40k. Just because you're a public sector employee (which I am, as it happens) that doesn't put you in some special catogory of being that is immune to economic reality and only ever strikes for righteously justified reasons. Let's not pretend this is Thatcher vs. the miners.

We should all work for free. For the good of the country in these bleak times.
That would give those selfish tube drivers something to think about on their tea breaks (an hour long, I've heard) and holidays.
 
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