Two strikes and I'm not out

Now as we all know, there’s nothing a Londoner likes to do better than grumble. And if there’s one thing they ALWAYS grumble about it’s the transport. Despite having one of the most reliable transport networks in the world, one can always hear a faint ripple of disapproval echo up an tube platform when we find out our next train is going to be A WHOLE MINUTE delayed. What is this? 1986 East Germany?? PAH! And don’t even get me started on the grumbling induced by the discomfort of having ones nose pressed up into a businessman’s sweaty armpit once one eventually crams onto the minutely delayed, crammed train. However in recent weeks there has been a fair bit to grumble about regarding transport, specifically tube strikes.

Now, I’ve grown up in London. Lived here the vast majority of my life in fact, so let it be said I have known many a transport strike. Back in the days as a child, attempting to catch her not so reliable 221 part way to school, (and kids, these were pre-oyster card days, imagine that, we had to pay actual money! IN COINS! You freebie oyster riders don’t know how good you’ve got it), strikes seemed as common as they are now, ie not actually all that common but always generating a huge amount of media coverage, mistrust and the previously mentioned disgruntlement. And while I may have aged, and my hair may have grayed (who am I kidding – may??) one thing that has more radically changed over the years is my slightly more considered thoughts about transport strikes.

Back when I was starting out, nothing enraged me more than a strike. Who did these people think they were? Damn trade unions disrupting all my plans for school/early career/ nights out on the razz*. How dare they? Then my feelings changed… I won’t go into the whys and wherefores of it (is far too dull, trust me), but needless to say I once had need of a trade union rep, and in addition to proving their worth to me they also showed to me their worth to workers as a whole.

Obviously board of catching the bus,
this chap tried another way into the office

Let us look at this strike specifically. Yes, those striking have the city by it’s short and curlies, because they offer a vital service to this great city of ours, but they also have a very valid point to make, all hidden under the rhetoric we see pumped out. Put it like this, if your employer wanted to radically change the terms and conditions of your contract under which you joined the company, without your agreement, wouldn’t you be a little pissed off? Don’t believe those muttering about tube strikers wages and holiday allowances being better than they deserve, what that most often translates as is that tube driver’s holiday and pay isn’t as much as they’d like for themselves and they’re annoyed they have to get up an hour earlier, cramming onto a bus that is more tightly packed than a French veal truck. Because what tube workers are taking action about in this particular strike, is their right to have a life dictated not by their bosses, but by themselves and their own considerations. What’s so wrong with that? Essentially tube workers don’t want to have their jobs radically altered without even a by your leave, let alone a proper consultation, and who can blame them? If your boss demanded that you suddenly work night shifts, weekends, and whatever the heck else they wanted as they are stomping over you and your employment rights in their size nines, wouldn’t you be a little annoyed and want someone to stick up for you? Of course you would!

A penny farthing for your thoughts
on the transport disruption? 

So while the rest of the country looks on, 20% part reveling in our discomfort and 80% in their own smugness for not living in ‘that there Lundun’, remember this, we work to live, we don’t live to work. And if we live by that maxim in our own lives, surely we can’t demand any different from the man or woman who drives our train, offers assistance in the ticket hall or clears up our sick if we’ve had one too many before hitting the Victoria Line on a night out (NB that was definitely not me). The thought may not have given me much comfort on my 3 and a half hour round trip commute to work today, but at least it gave me something else ponder on instead of the aroma emanating from the armpit in front of me, and quite frankly, I consider that a blessing.

* delete as appropriate but most often the latter.

p.s images wholeheartedly appropriated from the Guardian website, apologies: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2015/aug/06/tube-london-underground-strike-live-updates