Rail strike disrupts Britain again.

 Rail strike disrupts Britain again.

Britain wouldn't be Britain without its industrial turmoil, its raging, unionist led ferment, utter turmoil and a complete breakdown in communication with those who matter at the top of the management ladder. It's time to down tools brothers and sisters and everybody out. Once again one of the hardest working and underrated of sectors of Britain's blue collar movement have called a strike. The train drivers of Britain  have now clocked off officially and they won't go back to work until their very specific demands are met by a wicked, nasty, stubborn and intransigent Tory government. 

Now in the overall picture we've been here before so this doesn't come as a shock to the system. During the 1970s and 1980s Britain suffered terribly at the hands of militant miners and train drivers who refused to work because they felt they were being trampled into the dust, never really given the recognition they felt was their right and, above all, they were appallingly paid and the conditions they had to work under, were nothing short of scandalous. 

For as long as any of us can remember there has always been unrest around the negotiating tables of Britain's downtrodden driving folk, the men and women who spend most of their lives, burrowing their way through the Underground tunnels of London's fascinating Tube train network. It is a hard, demanding and arduous job where the hours are long and antisocial, the perks are very few and there's little in the way of proper recognition for all their graft and toil. 

Once again the whole crux of the issue at hand is money or rather the lack of it. It is about those dirty, filthy spartan conditions, pensions that are hardly worth talking about and negligible. And yet this is nothing new. So let's shut up all the Tube stations, bring the whole of London to a shuddering standstill and then create havoc with the rest of the country into the bargain. It is at times like this when you wish common sense and intelligence would intervene and everybody could reach an amiable compromise.

Rail and Maritime leader Mick Lynch behaved in way that all trade union leaders have always done since time immemorial. He growls angrily at Boris Johnson's uncooperative Tory government and then pours out his indignant grievances because the body of men and women who look to him for guidance are being grossly exploited. There's talk of loss of jobs, cutbacks and stringent redundancies, anarchy, ferocious resentment, fierce disagreements and mass inconvenience to the great British public. 

Back in the wild and wacky days of the 1970s one Arthur Scargill was very much the pioneering and crusading spirit for all those men who had gone down to the pit as children and sacrificed their lives in hot, often painfully uncomfortable mine seams, covered in coal and grime from head to feet. But that was the mining industry and we all know what happened then. Now the mines and trains of course are two entirely different animals but the principle is much the same. Pay us our rightful amount and we'll go back to work immediately. But if this is to be long and drawn out then so be it. Nobody wins and the public will have to make do and mend.

The harsh truth is that the public will have to work from home, taking out their laptops in their dining rooms, making tea and lunch for themselves and then pottering around their gardens for inspiration. It'll be a strange environment for them but not entirely unusual. For three years most of the world has had to work from home because if they came anywhere their place of unemployment they'd be penalised, punished and fined, heavily prosecuted and told never to go anywhere near an office or warehouse. 

But now our reacquaintance with normal life seemed to going really well. In fact it's been pretty plain sailing since the coronavirus restrictions were lifted. But now we seem to be back to square one. It's time to go on strike and talk around union tables with beer and sandwiches. Then there will be collective head scratching, quarrelling, digging of heels and then nothing, an annoying impasse. 

Two more strikes are planned for Thursday and Friday and suddenly Britain is stuck, trapped and marooned. There is a siege mentality at work here, a sense that they'll never back down, holding placards outside offices for hours, bawling out their discontent and not taking anymore. We will muddle through this latest mini drama in our lives and somebody will relent. Someone though will see the light of the day and most of us can look forward to our next trip on the Central, Northern, Piccadilly, Metropolitan and District Line. It must and will happen because it invariably does. Union power has to be reckoned with.