Dave,
With the greatest respect, and acknowledging that you say these things quite sincerely, your continual ranting about 'hard working people who just want to have a decent job and get on with life' is wearing very thin, with me at least. It's beginning to sound far too much like the 'look at Me - Me - Me' that's all too common in this country nowadays.
Why on earth do you keep going on as if rail staff are so terribly hard done by ? Don't you think that many millions of other people living in this country also work hard and just want to have a decent job and get on with life ? Out here, in the real world, the rest of us non-rail staff have had to accept that jobs rarely exist for life, or even lengthy periods. We've also had to accept that we may need to change jobs from time to time, against our wishes. We've also recognised that we may need to move house, or gain more qualifications, or retrain to work in different industries. What makes the rail staff any different ? What is it that you feel all the rest of us should do so that rail staff can have job guarantees for, seemingly, ever and a day.
I don’t really care if my rhetoric is wearing thin with you. As with most of the right wingers on here I don’t think you will ever ‘get it’. It’s nothing to do with ‘me me me’. As much as it riles some on here I have a very well paid job that isn’t likely to disappear in my career time. But I’m not so narrow minded as to just see my own situation. I see what is happening in the country and it truly depresses me. To see our PM publicly supporting Uber and Deliveroo with their appalling employment practices. It’s very very easy to see what May’s Government wants for employment in the future. You talk about people gaining more qualifications blah blah blah but never explain who pays for these people to up-skill. These courses are NOT free. I know as a driver my opinion on this whole subject means nothing to you even though I do the job day in day out. And yes the anti staff rhetoric on this forum has gotten worse and worse, which is why more and more staff are quitting this forum.