The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

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South West Claret.
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The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by South West Claret. » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:28 pm

As the title says, what do you think?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45532566" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by dsr » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:29 pm

I wonder if the nationalised railway would be as good as British Rail used to be?
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Tricky Trevor » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:32 pm

Virgin banned from bidding for West Coast again because partners Stagecoach won’t sign up to cover pensions.

https://news.sky.com/story/east-midland ... d-11689381" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Imploding Turtle » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:35 pm

Hopefully.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Imploding Turtle » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:36 pm

dsr wrote:I wonder if the nationalised railway would be as good as British Rail used to be?

Maybe. Or maybe it'll be as good as that one that was so good that it had to be privatised because it was turning a profit and the customers were too satisfied.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by dsr » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:38 pm

Imploding Turtle wrote:Maybe. Or maybe it'll be as good as that one that was so good that it had to be privatised because it was turning a profit and the customers were too satisfied.
Swiss railways?

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Imploding Turtle » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:40 pm

It's amazing how the "believe in Britain" crowd suddenly think that Britain is incapable of the kind of well run nationalised railways that many other countries like Britain have. What is it about the British that makes these people think we're incapable of having an efficiently run nationalisted railways system, like Germany or France.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by South West Claret. » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:41 pm

dsr wrote:I wonder if the nationalised railway would be as good as British Rail used to be?

Depends how important the Government thinks how necessary that the Country needs a well run and properly invested service to us the public, unlike the last time when governments seemed only interested in cost cutting and starving the railways of funds for investing while continuing to drive ticket prices up.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by dsr » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:49 pm

Imploding Turtle wrote:It's amazing how the "believe in Britain" crowd suddenly think that Britain is incapable of the kind of well run nationalised railways that many other countries like Britain have. What is it about the British that makes these people think we're incapable of having an efficiently run nationalisted railways system, like Germany or France.
Experience of how it's been done before.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Imploding Turtle » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:50 pm

South West Claret. wrote:Depends how important the Government thinks how necessary that the Country needs a well run and properly invested service to us the public, unlike the last time when governments seemed only interested in cost cutting and starving the railways of funds for investing while continuing to drive ticket prices up.
They're doing it with the NHS too. Defund it, watch it turn to ****, say to the public "look how bad a job the government does, we should turn it over to the free market", and then hand it over so that billionaires can get richer off your misery.

There is absolutely no reason why we can't have a well run nationalised railway like our neighbours. Especially when you learn that our "privatised" railways are owned by those other country's nationalised railways companies. We're ******* subsidising France's and Germany's nationalised railways :lol:

Edit: Just in case you thought i was joking https://fullfact.org/economy/who-owns-b ... gy-postal/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Quickenthetempo » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:56 pm

Imploding Turtle wrote:They're doing it with the NHS too. Defund it, watch it turn to ****, say to the public "look how bad a job the government does, we should turn it over to the free market", and then hand it over so that billionaires can get richer off your misery.

There is absolutely no reason why we can't have a well run nationalised railway like our neighbours. Especially when you learn that our "privatised" railways are owned by those other country's nationalised railways companies. We're ******* subsidising France's and Germany's nationalised railways :lol:

Edit: Just in case you thought i was joking https://fullfact.org/economy/who-owns-b ... gy-postal/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
What do you expect?
The Tories would sell their own grandmother.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Imploding Turtle » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:58 pm

Quickenthetempo wrote:What do you expect?
The Tories would sell their own grandmother.
Let's not pretend New Labour were innocent. But yes, they would.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Rick_Muller » Thu Apr 11, 2019 12:09 am

Imploding Turtle wrote:It's amazing how the "believe in Britain" crowd suddenly think that Britain is incapable of the kind of well run nationalised railways that many other countries like Britain have. What is it about the British that makes these people think we're incapable of having an efficiently run nationalisted railways system, like Germany or France.
Yeah but the EU bureaucracy... Brexit... confused... Tommy Robinson...

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by If it be your will » Thu Apr 11, 2019 12:12 am

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Last edited by If it be your will on Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Imploding Turtle » Thu Apr 11, 2019 12:13 am

If it be your will wrote:In answer to the thread title, definitely not while we're in the EU. The Fourth Railway Package strictly forbids a fully state owned, vertically integrated railway system that excludes competition. (The Swiss can do it - being outside the EU - but had to negotiate hard to keep it that way during their negotiations with the EU.)
Today I Learned that France and Germany aren't a part of the EU. Every day's a school day.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by If it be your will » Thu Apr 11, 2019 12:17 am

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Last edited by If it be your will on Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Imploding Turtle » Thu Apr 11, 2019 12:18 am

If it be your will wrote:No you didn't.
No, I didn't.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by tarkys_ears » Thu Apr 11, 2019 12:26 am

Imploding Turtle wrote:It's amazing how the "believe in Britain" crowd suddenly think that Britain is incapable of the kind of well run nationalised railways that many other countries like Britain have. What is it about the British that makes these people think we're incapable of having an efficiently run nationalisted railways system, like Germany or France.

Ah, so you've never been on either of those named.

Shame. You'd have an idea if you had.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by If it be your will » Thu Apr 11, 2019 12:31 am

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by If it be your will » Thu Apr 11, 2019 12:44 am

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Sproggy » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:44 am

Hmm... you've upset him now. He'll have been furiously Googling all night and will shortly respond with a graph to show you how right he's been all along.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by mdd2 » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:59 am

When the NHS swallows up over 50% of national income, maybe, just maybe there will be a re-think of how it should be run and financed.
As for the Railways my experience of it is that it is shed loads better than the pre-privatisation but not for all who use it and it is ridiculously expensive.
As well as David Cameron, Dr Beeching will be regarded as a bit of a disaster with his ideas.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by claretonthecoast1882 » Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:01 am

Anything that results in Northern rail losing their contract has my vote

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by mdd2 » Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:06 am

claretonthecoast1882 wrote:Anything that results in Northern rail losing their contract has my vote
Absolutely but apart from the expense which is a given Virgin NW has always offered me a better service than before it appeared on the scene

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by claretonthecoast1882 » Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:08 am

mdd2 wrote:Absolutely but apart from the expense which is a given Virgin NW has always offered me a better service than before it appeared on the scene
Virgin and Transpenine have always been fine for me, Northern are just a work shy lazy operation with unreliable staff
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by deanothedino » Thu Apr 11, 2019 8:24 am

You can't compare privatising the railways and the NHS imo. The NHS is massively inefficient, I don't agree with privatising it but it needs to be rethought.

As for railways, the East Coast franchise was the lowest subsidised franchise when it was state-run... so maybe we could be more efficient if they were state-run.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by If it be your will » Wed May 08, 2019 11:49 pm

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Clarets4me » Thu May 09, 2019 12:42 am

Imploding Turtle wrote:It's amazing how the "believe in Britain" crowd suddenly think that Britain is incapable of the kind of well run nationalised railways that many other countries like Britain have. What is it about the British that makes these people think we're incapable of having an efficiently run nationalisted railways system, like Germany or France.
Because those of us who remember State owned railways, remember what a crock of **** they were !!

And for them to happen, Corbyn would have to be Prime Minister, oh dear !!

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Test User » Thu May 09, 2019 1:35 am

Clarets4me wrote:Because those of us who remember State owned railways, remember what a crock of **** they were !!

And for them to happen, Corbyn would have to be Prime Minister, oh dear !!

We already have state owned railways. France and Germany run trains on them. Except unlike their own railways which are run well and with the customer's interests as a priority, they get to run ours terribly because they're entirely profit driven whereas at home they have to answer to the customers in the form of votes.

But maybe you're right. Maybe this country is too stupid to run it's own railways as well as other countries run theirs. It would certainly explain why we choose to pay for them, because we're idiots.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by evensteadiereddie » Thu May 09, 2019 6:15 am

We're idiots for putting up with greedy, short-sighted governments running down our services and then flogging them off to our competitors.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Taffy on the wing » Thu May 09, 2019 6:34 am

Clarets4me wrote:Because those of us who remember State owned railways, remember what a crock of **** they were !!

And for them to happen, Corbyn would have to be Prime Minister, oh dear !!
You Sir are an idiot!.. Thatcher & Co. sold off the railways (owned and paid for by Taxpayers) for pennies on the pound.
Private companies carved up the best routes between them, and let the more rural, less profitable routes rot, essentially stranding thousands of people, with no way to get where they wanted to go......... leaving the Taxpayer with high ticket prices AND the cost of closing the unprofitable lines....and on and on, all in the name of profit!

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by mealdeal » Thu May 09, 2019 7:27 am

dsr wrote:Experience of how it's been done before.
You can’t seriously think the way trains are run in this country now is any better than it used to be? That is unless you never use them or you live in a small area of the south of England. If you live in the north and hold this view then you’re just weirdly sticking to your ideological guns for no reason.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by fatboy47 » Thu May 09, 2019 7:28 am

Sooner the better....the railways need to be in public ownership......such an important part of the infrastructure can't just be a feeding trough for pigs.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by mikeS » Thu May 09, 2019 8:20 am

The railways in Europe are better than we have. Britain’s privatisation led to underfunding, overcrowding, excessive fares, delays, and disruption. The Labour Party have said they will renationalise but that’s not enough. We need a complete upgrade of our railway stations, a part reversal of what Beeching butchered to open up some disused routes, HS2, HS3 in the North connecting towns and cities up here, electric services across the entire network to reduce our carbon use. Major job. But we’ll worth doing.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by bobinho » Thu May 09, 2019 8:30 am

Whilst we are on about how wonderful the German rail network is, does anyone know how much income tax the Germans pay?

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Corky » Thu May 09, 2019 8:34 am

mikeS wrote:The railways in Europe are better than we have. Britain’s privatisation led to underfunding, overcrowding, excessive fares, delays, and disruption. The Labour Party have said they will renationalise but that’s not enough. We need a complete upgrade of our railway stations, a part reversal of what Beeching butchered to open up some disused routes, HS2, HS3 in the North connecting towns and cities up here, electric services across the entire network to reduce our carbon use. Major job. But we’ll worth doing.
Agreed. But we also need a sensible integrated transport policy that links all forms of transport and transport hubs. Also scrapping BRB and introducing privatisation on the railways was meant to show that private companies would do a better job. This, clearly, is demonstrably not the case.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by thatdberight » Thu May 09, 2019 8:54 am

mikeS wrote:The railways in Europe are better than we have. Britain’s privatisation led to underfunding, overcrowding, excessive fares, delays, and disruption.
They're not as much better, or cheaper, as it's perceived.

30, since you'll no doubt ask.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by mikeS » Thu May 09, 2019 9:28 am

I’ve had the experience of travelling on trains in Europe for over 50 years, I’ve always had a seat, as has everyone else. It can happen here too if there’s a proper plan and an integrated system, with proper state and private funding.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by keith1879 » Thu May 09, 2019 9:49 am

Clarets4me wrote:Because those of us who remember State owned railways, remember what a crock of **** they were !!

And for them to happen, Corbyn would have to be Prime Minister, oh dear !!
They were however far less costly to the country than the current set-up. Any time you read that the current railway system is more efficiient you should dig into the figures and I guarantee that you will find that the annual £4 billion subsidy to network rail has been conveniently excluded. BR was considered (throughout Europe) to be a highly efficient organisation and other countries used to visit BR to learn from them. Their failings were (at least in part) due to an endless lack of investment from successive governments.

BR was expected to break even over the medium term and did so .....our current railway system is so far from breaking even that it cannot even be considered as a possibility. Both the conservatives and "new" labour have colluded in the deception that the privatised railway system makes a profit in order to shore up their doctrinaire support of private ownership.

All that said ...... there are now more trains carrying more people which must be a good thing. Just don't run away with the idea that it is because of private ownership .....the fares are higher in real terms and the tax-payer is providing more support (also in real terms) while at least 100 private companies seek to make profits where previously there was none.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by thatdberight » Thu May 09, 2019 9:57 am

GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png
GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png (51.12 KiB) Viewed 4645 times
Privatisation of the rail industry is not an unalloyed success story. But it is a success story.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by cbx750 » Thu May 09, 2019 10:03 am

bobinho wrote:Whilst we are on about how wonderful the German rail network is, does anyone know how much income tax the Germans pay?
Income tax in Germany is progressive: first, income tax rates start at 14%, then they rise incrementally to 42%; last, very high income levels are taxed at 45%. The top tax rate of 42% applies to taxable income above €55,961. Finally, for taxable income above €265,327, a 45% tax is applicable.

If that's wrong blame Google.
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by mealdeal » Thu May 09, 2019 10:17 am

thatdberight wrote:
GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png
Privatisation of the rail industry is not an unalloyed success story. But it is a success story.
You can't post that graph and then mic drop. I can't think what happened post war, can you? Oh yeah, everyone bought a car and as a country we went on a road building spree to drive them on. At the end of the 90s people started reverting to rail because frankly the roads had suffered under investment and you struggled to drive anywhere, fuel also started getting progressively more expensive.

As much as nationalisation, those facts can explain your graph.

Image

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by thatdberight » Thu May 09, 2019 10:27 am

mealdeal wrote:You can't post that graph and then mic drop. I can't think what happened post war, can you? Oh yeah, everyone bought a car and as a country we went on a road building spree to drive them on. At the end of the 90s people started reverting to rail because frankly the roads had suffered under investment and you struggled to drive anywhere, fuel also started getting progressively more expensive.

As much as nationalisation, those facts can explain your graph.

Image
The privatised rail companies got very lucky that this combination of effects happened just as they came into being.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by mealdeal » Thu May 09, 2019 10:30 am

Nonsense. These effects didn't 'just happen', they were engineered.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by tarkys_ears » Thu May 09, 2019 10:33 am

Imploding Turtle wrote:It's amazing how the "believe in Britain" crowd suddenly think that Britain is incapable of the kind of well run nationalised railways that many other countries like Britain have. What is it about the British that makes these people think we're incapable of having an efficiently run nationalisted railways system, like Germany or France.
The unions won't let them.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by keith1879 » Thu May 09, 2019 10:41 am

mealdeal wrote:You can't post that graph and then mic drop. I can't think what happened post war, can you? Oh yeah, everyone bought a car and as a country we went on a road building spree to drive them on. At the end of the 90s people started reverting to rail because frankly the roads had suffered under investment and you struggled to drive anywhere, fuel also started getting progressively more expensive.

As much as nationalisation, those facts can explain your graph.

Image
PLUS ...as I said above the taxpayer support for the current rail system is massively greater than it was for the nationalised BR. That is the irony of our "private" system ......it is more closely managed by the civil service and more heavily funded by the treasury than BR ever was.

In practice of course Network Rail (which is the single biggest part of what BR used to be) is a nationalised company.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by COBBLE » Thu May 09, 2019 10:42 am

Imploding Turtle wrote:It's amazing how the "believe in Britain" crowd suddenly think that Britain is incapable of the kind of well run nationalised railways that many other countries like Britain have. What is it about the British that makes these people think we're incapable of having an efficiently run nationalisted railways system, like Germany or France.
We have the management skills but we have a meddling, political elite and a history of self serving unions that would exploit its economic power and grip on services for selfish reasons at the expense of the travelling public. See London tube strikes.
Last edited by COBBLE on Thu May 09, 2019 10:59 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by thatdberight » Thu May 09, 2019 10:44 am

keith1879 wrote:PLUS ...as I said above the taxpayer support for the current rail system is massively greater than it was for the nationalised BR. That is the irony of our "private" system ......it is more closely managed by the civil service and more heavily funded by the treasury than BR ever was.

In practice of course Network Rail (which is the single biggest part of what BR used to be) is a nationalised company.
And the last detailed analysis I saw showed that the nationalised part was the part of the system that is economically inefficient.

I can't pretend to understand the details of all the financials. I would like to see government spend split between operating and capital to make sure I understand the contention that there's much more public subsidy. By the way, I'm in favour of public subsidy and more investment in the rail industry. Just not in favour of public ownership.

If it be your will
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by If it be your will » Thu May 09, 2019 2:05 pm

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Last edited by If it be your will on Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Imploding Turtle
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Re: The beginning of the end for privatised railways?

Post by Imploding Turtle » Fri May 31, 2019 12:44 am

COBBLE wrote:We have the management skills but we have a meddling, political elite and a history of self serving unions that would exploit its economic power and grip on services for selfish reasons at the expense of the travelling public. See London tube strikes.

I don't agree with you, but pretending you had a point for a moment I much prefer that unions exploit the economic power of something for the benefit of their members than private companies exploiting workers and their necessity for a meagre wage to the benefit of their shareholders.

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