Passengers need to think what strike’s really about
Mark O’Meara, golfer, Kevin Anderson, actor,
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, actress, Suggs McPherson, singer, Penelope Ann Miller, actress, Ronan Rafferty, golfer, Stephen Hendry, snooker player Nicole Eggert, actress, Orlando Bloom, actor I THINK Dewsbury MP Paula Sherriff is totally misrepresenting Northern’s proposals for conductors on their trains.
As I am sure she knows, Northern has guaranteed that a safety-trained conductor will be retained on all trains and will concentrate on helping passengers and checking/ issuing tickets while the driver operates the doors with complete safety, as already happens on a third of our mainline trains and the whole London Underground and Overground systems.
This second member of the on train team will be able to help disabled passengers and deal with emergencies in exactly the same way as today and will have more time rather than less to attend to passengers
The proposals have been approved by the independent rail safety authority as being acceptable and safe and make complete sense.
I have lost count of the number of times the conductor on my train has had to break off from issuing tickets every few minutes to operate the doors. This helps no-one, not least the passengers having to join a long queue to buy a ticket at their destination.
Northern have said the only time a train will not have a conductor is in cases of last minute on-the-day sickness or if the designated conductor is unable to get to his/her train because he/she is trapped on a seriously delayed previous train.
Northern is proposing these exceptions so as to avoid having to cancel the train which is what would otherwise occur and which is in no-one’s interest.
If Northern proposals are so reasonable why is the RMT opposing them so vehemently?
RMT has always been one of our most militant unions, wishes to make the case for nationalisation which would give it even more control and its president Sean Hoyle has declared an avowed intent to bring down “this Tory Government.”
I believe passengers need look no further for the reason for the strikes. thoughts from an EU supporter, who says that the UK economic situation “continues to fail” and in support of this proposition he also states “the stock market may appear to be at a record high but, in fact, if you consider that this is based only on the unrepresentative FTSE 100, the FTSE 250 is a much better guide and this is only possible because of the pound’s record low position.”
Yes, I thought, perhaps he has a point.
However, closing figures on that day on the BBC business website, are FTSE 100 - closed at 7731 compared to a 12-month high of 7733 (the close represents 99.97% of the 12 month high), FTSE 250 - closed at 20875 compared to a 12 month high of 20933 (99.72%).
Hardly a significant outperformance by the senior index I would opine.
However, there will be what the experts euphemistically call a “correction” some time in the future, (nobody knows when), and then perhaps your correspondent will perhaps say that he was right all along.