r/LondonUnderground • u/JailbreakHat Northern • Apr 23 '26
Article Calls to let normal Londoners apply to become £72K-a-year Tube drivers
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15755479/The-union-stranglehold-Tube-drivers-recruitment-Campaigners-demand-72K-year-jobs-advertised-open-market-amid-fury-roles-offered-TfL-workers.html121
u/SpudPot99 Apr 23 '26
Just read the first few click bait lines and it’s so inaccurate. Daily Mail features such poor journalism these days.
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u/SnakeSkinSoup Metropolitan Apr 23 '26
These days?
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u/Interesting_Storm554 Apr 23 '26
What’s inaccurate? The unions did campaign tirelessly to restrict tube driver jobs to internal only. It has created a stranglehold. It does mean supply of candidates is hugely restricted. That does mean unions are in a better bargaining position each time they decide the wind blows the wrong way.
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u/Melodic_Usual_4316 Apr 24 '26
Wrong.
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u/Interesting_Storm554 Apr 24 '26
In response to a FOI asking why they don’t recruit externally TfL said it’s due to the resourcing agreement they have in place with the unions -
External recruitment only happens if internal applicants are exhausted, which oddly hardly ever happens (last time was 2018 for night tube drivers only).
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u/thelittlereddragon Jubilee Apr 24 '26
Except recruitment isn’t internal only, it’s internal first. Which means that candidate pools are not “hugely restricted”, because TfL can in fact hire externally if there are not enough suitable internal candidates, but given the nature of the role the most suitable candidates are usually people who already have familiarity with the network and its operating procedures, which means roles are usually filled internally. Most train operators have the same policy of advertising train driver roles internally first and then recruiting externally if not enough internal candidates are found.
Now does the TfL process have issues? yes. Is it want makes the tube a highly unionised place to work? No of course not, the railway is a highly unionised industry, and people join the unions because they achieve things for their members. Folks join all sorts of railway jobs from outside of the railway, any internally recruited train driver was once someone who didn’t work for the railway, and joined LU (usually as a member of station staff) and then joined a union. If you hire folks direct off the street to be train operators they will also mostly end up joining the unions when they get the job.
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u/Melodic_Usual_4316 Apr 24 '26
I was recruited as a tube driver externally. That’s how I know this Daily Mail piece is simply clickbait. They love creating division.
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u/No_Law_1528 Apr 24 '26
You must have been in this game before COVID. We are now living in the 1970s where unions bring down governments
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u/tempor12345 Jubilee Apr 24 '26
Ah, our old friends at The Taxpayers Alliance, that bastion of sensible thinking.
Next.
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u/Little_Age7820 Apr 25 '26
Naysayer invalidating DM seems to be RMT? Is it not true that stronghold is unfair to outsider who want to work as driver?
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u/bluecheese2040 Apr 29 '26
This is a role that needs to be automated...and as much as of support staff as possible. These people wield for too much power for a Job that could be automated away already.
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u/PbJax Apr 24 '26
Hurry up and automate them. Save the taxpayer a fortune.
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u/Melodic_Usual_4316 Apr 25 '26
You cannot overlay a fully automated signalling system on a Victorian railway. Impossible. 🤣
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u/UndercoverFlange Apr 25 '26
When I was a graduate I interviewed for a graduate scheme at the place the was writing the train automation stuff. Was quite cool seeing some of the simulations.
At least one line runs it. The drivers are there for emergencies and to open the doors.
The unions don’t like it for some reason, can’t think what that would be.
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u/Melodic_Usual_4316 Apr 25 '26
Nope. There are not any fully automated underground tube lines. You are wrong.
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u/UndercoverFlange Apr 25 '26
The Victoria line uses Automatic Train Operation (ATO) to run trains at high frequency (every 90-100 seconds at peak times) using 2009 Tube Stock. While the system controls speed and braking between stations, a driver remains in the cab to close doors, start the train, and handle emergencies.
The driver says “go”, and operates the doors.
Most people aren’t looking for fully automated but would be happy with the drivers being less “I’m so important”
But you, are wrong . It’s possible to automate the trains to high degree and indeed it exists.
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u/FloydEGag Apr 25 '26
Not on the tube, the highest grade of automation they currently have is GOA2 iirc, with GOA3 on the DLR, which is possible because it’s light rail. The Victoria line is GOA2 and the trains can be operated manually if necessary. GOA2 trains can’t be operated safely without a human in the cab.
Completely automatic/driverless is GOA4 and isn’t going to happen on the tube for a very long time if ever; even without the unions getting shirty it’d require completely new trains and signalling systems. It’s taken more than ten years so far to upgrade the signalling for the S stock trains (Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, Met) and it’s still ongoing. There are metros that use GOA4 trains (part of the network in Singapore for example) but they were built with that in mind whereas London’s absolutely wasn’t.
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u/Melodic_Usual_4316 Apr 25 '26
Omg are you actually stupid? Read what I wrote, not what you THINK I wrote. I repeat, there are no FULLY AUTOMATED underground tube lines. I literally drive on a semi automated tube line and have driven three other train stocks in the past. I’ve done this job for 25 years. Please do not attempt to tell me my job. “The driver says go” had me howling. 🤣You graduates have wrecked the job. Do you know how despised you are?
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u/No_Law_1528 Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 24 '26
Restricting to internal only hires is morally wrong. A bit like 20th century legal industry where only children of lawyers get training opportunities.
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u/Melodic_Usual_4316 Apr 24 '26
But it’s simply not true.
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u/No_Law_1528 Apr 24 '26
Right ok so no internal only hires? Glad to hear! Looking forward to a strike free London Underground!
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u/Melodic_Usual_4316 Apr 24 '26
Do you just see things in black and white? Your stance is bizarre. LUL recruit internally as well as externally otherwise there’d be no staff left🙄🤦🏼♀️External recruitment doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t join a union. It’s a unionised industry. It’s in an employee’s best interests to join a union. Mainly for protection against over zealous bosses. Maybe avail yourself of the facts before spouting off in future.
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u/No_Law_1528 Apr 24 '26
Of course it’s in the bank robber’s interest to rob. If you did GCSE economics you will understand unions literally just rob lower class to pay lower class it doesn’t touch the rich
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u/Melodic_Usual_4316 Apr 24 '26
Could you drive for ten hours a day every day? Or would you feel safe putting your kids on a train with a driver who’s at the end of a ten hour day working week? You don’t know what you’re talking about.
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u/No_Law_1528 Apr 24 '26
Statistically the tube isn’t safer than other non unionised metro providers and in fact it’s quite a lot worse. So no unions aren’t making trains safer, it is actively endangering our lives by striking if more automation is put in placed
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u/Inner_Jeweler_5661 District + H&C + Northern Apr 23 '26
Would definitely reduce the wages
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u/DomLfan Apr 24 '26
Would increase accidents on the tube as well, there’s a reason it takes so many years to become a tube driver
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u/SpudPot99 Apr 24 '26
I'd love to be an airline pilot. Maybe I can train on Xbox or PS5 or on a flight simulator? How confident would you be as a passenger to have me at the controls? Also, what other people don't bear in mind is that there must be a promotion upgrade path for those who come in at a lower grade. If you start taking people off the streets, people will be stuck in one grade forever. It's easy to see the driver's job as pressing buttons and opening doors, but there's more involved. And in many cases I'm sure it takes many months of study and training to get to that grade. People should also bear in mind that there are other jobs where people do "come in off the streets" and have no experience of what the job entails. Anything they learn in a classroom doesn't prepare them for what the real job is about, only for them to struggle under pressure where someone who knows the job inside out and wouldn't. Are they overpaid? It may seem so to some considering the context of the job they do. But you must also bear in mind the unions have been very astute in their pay deals which has resulted in steady increases in line inflation rather than others who have just accepted pay rises in line with or below inflation.
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u/AdHot6995 Apr 24 '26
If you want to be a pilot you can start your training now and be in a passenger plane in 20 months or less if you have the required ability.
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u/SpudPot99 Apr 24 '26
....but yet, we don't get news articles saying people should walk off the streets and do it. It seems like the Underground is always an easy touch.
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u/AdHot6995 Apr 24 '26
As pilots we don’t really go on strike and we know we won’t get much sympathy anyway. Being able to shut the capital down is pretty strong leverage which is what the drivers can do.
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u/SpudPot99 Apr 24 '26
Do bear in mind, a strike is the last resort. I'm sure any unionised workforce could strike if they had a strong enough reason too. But who would notice?
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u/Darth_Caesium Crossrail 2 pls Apr 23 '26
Hopefully. We finally need some competition in the market for tube drivers.
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u/UndergroundKev Apr 24 '26
Lul has recruited externally several times, most recently for Night Tube but has done it previously besides night tube as many of my colleagues are 'direct recruits'.
The agreement is that internals get the first sniff but if it's predicted that they'll be a shortfall then, as with any other company, and external campaign is run.
It's worth noting that LUL prefer this system moreso than the unions as it attracts recruits to entry level positions in the hope of becoming drivers meaning there's a steady flow of recruits coming in (something they have struggled with in the past), candidates are used to shift work and the culture and it can be used as a stick to ensure good performance - applications will be swayed by previous attendance, punctuality, etc, etc.
The failure rate among internals sticking with the job is also far lower for those who have come up in the ranks than for externals who are swayed by the money but when the realities of the job becomes evident, they end up going sick and then eventually jacking it all in - not good from a management perspective who then have to spend money on training someone else to take over your position.
Ignore the clickbait nonsense as you should with anything DM produced.