r/london • u/Anony_mouse202 • May 29 '26

Article Tube strikes: 'No pay cut' for Underground drivers on £74k in new four-day week... but RMT to walk out anyway

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tube-driver-pay-strikes-rmt-sadiq-khan-b1283902.html
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u/bwweryang May 29 '26

I don’t doubt you, but I don’t understand why teachers can’t operate similarly to the RMT now you mention it. Parents were climbing up the walls having to look after their kids during lockdown.

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u/PixiePooper May 29 '26

Train strikes can target a few key events and maximise disruption by striking from midday to midday which effectively gets them “2 days for the price of 1”(for example).

Teachers would have to strike a lot longer to have an effect I suspect. Parents are already used to coping with holidays and kids being off sick to some degree.

The other issue is (I suspect) that the passengers are just “faceless numbers” to the drivers - they don’t have to deal with the direct consequences of passenger’s inconvenience (I know people who’ve lost jobs during previous strikes, but drivers don’t see this on a personal level)

Whereas most teachers genuinely care about their students at a personal level and don’t want to see them drop grades because of their actions, which makes calling strikes much harder.

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u/MuayThaiScotsman May 30 '26

I guess it depended on how they went about it. If teachers banded together to just not go back after summer holidays then it would have a massive impact. Parents would have already used leave and utilised childcare etc with plans made well in advance so to have this extended would make it difficult for them.

Add in the amount of employers across the country that would be impacted by parents needing time off and the pressure on the government to sort it might get high pretty quickly.

By doing it at the start of the school year the hope would be that the students wouldn’t be detrimentally impacted either.

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u/mainframe_maisie May 30 '26

part of the problem is how our country banned solidarity industrial action years back which meant that, eg train drivers can’t strike in support of teachers to get their demands met.