More Union Madness

If you are a Blogosphere Veteran, you may be beginning to worry that my regular rambles about trains have been replaced by a penchant for trade union bashing.

I do apologise for this inconvenience, but as everyone is attempting to strike, I have a lot to say on the matter.  Besides, when it’s as justified as it is at the moment, it’s more fun than ever to poke fun at the unions.

We learned this week that yet another trade union has made fools of its members by rigging a strike ballot. The RMT have had to call off the rail strike because the ballot included phantom employees.

According to the BBC, our friend Bob Crowe justifies this as follows:

"There's 1,700 workplaces and over 18,000 workers that work on the Network Rail sites, and we have to at any given moment in time before we ballot, name every single grade and every work location.

"By the time you finish the audit it's like the Forth Bridge - you start again because someone else has been promoted, someone else has been sacked, someone dies and so on. It's a moving feast"

Reading The Times, I learned that some of the signal boxes included in the ballot have been closed for some time.  Apparently, Chalford Signal Box was last in use in 1964.  Mr Crowe, if you cannot keep abreast of developments which happened 46 years ago you should be sacked for gross incompetence.

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