Showing posts with label TUC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TUC. Show all posts

Wednesday, 31 May 2023

Trade unions are also a fat lot of use and are as bad as the bosses and MPs and councillors

31 May 2023 

WHO WILL RESPOND? WHO WILL SORT ME OUT?!

I am challenging trade union members in this group to explain themselves:

  1. It is ten years since I retired (at 65.5 yrs) and have been working more intensively to expose the scandal of Black Country and Brum railway lines destroyed by buildings and roads and immorally expensive trams. In that time, one member of ASLEF has helped me.
  2. That man is a quite magnificent train driver from Rowley Regis, Dave Parsons who eventually resigned from ASLEF in disgust at their support for railway destruction - sometimes to get trams.
  3. Simon Weller of national ASLEF, whom I heard interviewed on Radio 4, sent my lengthy, detailed evidence of wrongdoing, collusion and acquiescence - quite apart from plain negligence - to the library at his national London HQ, as if that would make a fat lot of difference!
  4. The Midlands TUC and Rob Johnston, Regional policy & campaigns officer and his boss, Lee Barron, have both failed to answer one email or to see me to arrange an appointment when I called, in person, at their Summer Lane HQ (now 24 Livery Street).
  5. When I tried to doorstep Rob as he hurriedly disappeared down the steps after a WMCA Board meeting of which he is a member, even then he refused to speak or listen to me, the rude man.
  6. This was in stark contrast to Tory Mayor Andy Street who has seen me in his office for 30 min.  In addition, as with other members of the public who approach him, he always gives his time and attention to everyone at the end of his public meetings.
  7. This is also in stark contrast to the top people at TfWM/WMCA HQ down the road at 16 Summer Lane who have engaged with me and, even replied to emails.
  8. Because every trade union member and union has sided with the transport bosses, we have this sorry story of idiocy and incompetence, of negligence and folly:-
  • I have listed 7 Dudley railway lines, all destroyed, as part of about 100 Kms in total that have gone forever in the West Midlands. Yet, in their guilty silence, not a whisper is heard from a single trade union, let alone a railway union, because they all collude with the bosses, over the wipe out of their own workplace!!
  • After the completion of Dudley Tram Phase One, there are still 100 Kms awaiting passenger trains and stations in the region.
  • Phase One was put on the UK's very last, completed but never used, over 56 Kms out of 120 Kms, principal mainline railway!
  • But never a dicky bird is heard from any trade unionist, apart from magnificent Dave Parsons who resigned from ASLEF in protest at his union's collusion and complicity in stupidity and financial scandal!

WHAT A DISGRACE!

Thursday, 11 February 2021

TUC webinar on 11 Feb 2021

Should the TUC be at all concerned?  When West Midlands Metro tram extensions mean:-

  • at ten times the construction cost/Km of rebuilding a railway line in Scotland in 2015;
  • convert 6.7 Kms of a half unused but ready built 120 Kms Black Country mainline railway into a tramway;
  • convert eleven direct bus routes through the Birmingham Five Ways underpass and Broad Street into a tramway that mean all round the Wrekin diversion for bus passengers;
  • that then make for a slower, longer and worse public transport service for the eleven bus routes from west Brum, Dudley borough, and Sandwell;
should the TUC be at all concerned?    Tim Weller

Saturday, 5 December 2020

How come shuttle trams still don't come anywhere near linking the missing middle section with the Worcester and Derby mainline sections?


How come shuttle trams still don't come anywhere near linking the missing middle section with the Worcester and Derby mainline sections?

Hi Dave and copied to Brum Trades Council and TUC - for some standing up to the W Mids Combined Authority, as Dave and I are doing.  Please join us.

Thanks for this.  All very true and good stuff, Dave.  Could someone give me Mick Whelan's email address, please?  Could Mick Whelan answer Dave's points, please.  David Parsons is a member of ASLEF, I understand.  He has the courage to stand up for the right, the sane, sensible return of trains before any more railway lines get bulldozed for homes, shops, offices, roads and shuttle trams to not quite link two sections of our mainline railway.​
​
"Campaigning is ASLEF's core activity", says their website.  So why is Mick not joining Dave, me and Railfuture for the 120 Kms Worcester, Black Country, Derby Railway "of national strategic significance" to be finished?!   Finished with stations for commuter, regional and freight trains on the full, completed length where every bridge, tunnel, underpass and flyover are all in place.  Why freight only at each end?​​
Where does Brum's Trades Council stand on this vital issue, Stuart?  Will you come off the fence and stand up for railway TRAINS being reinstated on railway lines instead of the missing middle section being used for trams, a VLR test track and an extended cycle-walkway?

What does Lee Baron think, please, my friend?

In March 2019, Edinburgh City Council had a debate and vote before going ahead with their tram extension costing £207 m for 4.7 Kms.  In the West Midlands, the seven district councils and the Combined Authority are spending over £1.5 BILLION for their five tram extensions without any debate and vote in any of the seven council chambers.  Should they have done?  Should they still?

Best wishes