Striking The Right Balance
‘MY lords and members of the house, my Government will continue to pursue policies… blah, blah… legalise heroin… blah… blah… 51st state of the USA… blah… blah… ban on fly swatting…
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| Making life that little bit easier |
Picking out the best bits from the Queens Speech is never the simplest of jobs, so the Independent just prints the entire million or so words of Her Majestys announcement for anyone who wants to know more.
So long is it that the very real fear is that no-one other than Prince Edward or a worker on the London Underground will have the time to deliberate what the head of state yesterday proposed in the name of her Government.
And dont doubt that Tube staff have time on their hands. As the Telegraph says, theyve 52 days of it to pick over the details.
A new agreement struck yesterday means that, excluding weekends, the Tubes 7,000 station staff will gain an extra nine rest days a year, on top of the existing six days off, the 29 days holiday and the eight bank holidays.
The RMT union is delighted with this and supports the ground-breaking scheme which, all told, will allow its members to have 43% of the year off work.
The unions leader, the charmless Bob Crow, was good to his name and loudly heralded the move.
Once again our members solidarity has brought results, and we have hammered out a deal that sets the standard for the industry, says he.
Bob Law, the unions regional organiser, was equally chuffed.
Surprisingly finding him at his desk, the Telegraph hears him say how with abuse and assaults directed at his members rising at an alarming rate members would now get some quality time off from what is a difficult job.
Of course, part of that abuse may be down to the number of trains cancelled because of staff shortages or the number of ticket-windows that are never manned.
Which means that the abuse will only get worse, Crow will call more strikes and the result will be that staff will get yet more time off.
It is only a matter of time before we get to the situation where no-one works on the Underground at all. Just like the trains, the escalators, the ticket machines…’
Posted: 24th, November 2004 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
