Unless you are a rail passenger in the Hull area you would have no idea of a truly shocking strike being organised by Aslef’s chief Mick Whelan and therefore may not comprehend why Angela Rayner’s new employment laws will be a disaster as it gives even more power to these union thugs.
On March 31, train drivers in Hull (average pay for unskilled work is £73,000) will walk out for 56 days.
The reason, and Aslef, as you well know doesn’t really need a reason, is that one of their members was fired for falling asleep at the wheel.
Yes, falling asleep.
Being a train driver, you simply couldn’t imagine a more serious offence. The driver kept quiet about the ‘’fatigue’’ and only mentioned it in passing sometime later - in itself is a disciplinary matter - but an investigation then disclosed similar sleeping issues had happened before.
The reality is that automatic safety systems, including the dead man’s handle, would have stopped a train if it had passed a red stop signal. The handle is depressed by the driver whenever the train is in motion and if he lets go the emergency brakes are triggered.
However, if the train had been switched to a different line with a lower speed limit while the driver was asleep it could have derailed.
Correctly the Hull train management fired the driver almost as much for his failure to disclose on top of his inability to keep awake when driving a train which can do 125mph. Enter Mr Whelan demanding the reinstatement of the driver or warning the Hull train drivers would go on strike.
Correctly, the management told Aslef to get stuffed. They were speaking on behalf of the passengers. The paying punter has to tolerate their drivers being overpaid, they have to tolerate the trains not running on time but they don’t have to face being killed by a sleeping driver.
See. That’s what happens when you hand too much power to the unions. And under Rayner’s law making its way though the House of Lords that is exactly what is going to happen.
I am hopeful that even dimwit Aslef members may see the danger of keeping a sleeping colleague in work and even at this late stage might indicate to Whelan that they can’t support him.
That may be naïve of me but can you imagine the outcry if a train was derailed thanks to a sleeping driver and passengers were killed.
The new employment law will bring more tyrants like Whelan to the fore. If even 2% of the workforce sign up to a union, officials like Whelan will be able to go into the office or factory and attempt to persuade everybody else to join.
The Whelans of this world will be entitled to offices within the company so every day working out how to bugger up the operations and stop companies either saving money or expanding. Or firing sleeping colleagues.
I had the misfortune of working in the print where until Wapping nothing could be done unless the Lefty tyrants of the NGA and Natsopa had given the nod.
It was a fantastic day when they were all cleared out .
The rest of the employment laws will be nightmare, especially for smaller businesses. From Day One employees will be entitled to ask for flexible working; ie working from home. You can imagine when the answer is no the creep will be off to the employment tribunal.
Kelvin MacKenzie as hit out the train drivers unions
GETTY
The employees will also be allowed to ask for a four-day week. You can be sure they will claim their wife/mother/cat is disabled and they need the extra for home. Throw in the fact you can ask for time off because a neighbour has died you can see that our productivity is going to go down not up.
This country is a basket case. It wasn’t much good under the Tories, it’s even worse under Labour.
And one of the reasons is that there are a number of Whelans in the union movement and thanks to Rayner they are to become more powerful. Nightmare.