My modest proposal for solving the Underground’s staff problems: secretly build a replica system in remote rural India, poach 25,000 staff from Indian Railways, and train them to work the Tube. Once they’re trained, sack the entire idle and overpaid LU workforce with no notice, and bring the Indians over on a 12-month contract.
At the end of the 12 months, re-advertise the jobs both to the Indians and to former LU workers, with a 40-hour week, 25 days’ annual holiday, working for private sector contractors. Rigorously enforce performance standards and regularly sack people for being rubbish [*] and/or taking the piss with sick leave.
[*] Driving through four red signals would count as being rubbish. So would going on strike to support some idiot who’s been demoted (not even sacked) for driving through four red signals.
Is yer new job in the City? You’ll soon find out that it’s sort of a wonderful carnival atmosphere on Tube strike days; everyone knows that it would be misery to try to go home at the normal time, so we all trundle down to the pub to wait for things to calm down a bit. The birthrate’s bad enough already without removing these wonderful, social occasions.
Unfortunately it’s up the Finchley Road, so this may not be so relevant (I’m also commuting by Silverlink rather than by tube, so don’t even get to miss work through strikes…)
hmmmm, what’s up the Finchley Road that needs doing … some sort of consultancy thing?