La mitad de los trabajadores del Metro de Londres están en huelga desde ayer miércoles (hasta mañana) y la ciudad es un completo caos. Tres millones de londinenses utilizan el metro cada día, incluidas la mayoría de las 300.000 personas que trabajamos en la City. Los autobuses se llenan en apenas unas paradas y la gente se apelotona en la calle sin poder entrar en ninguno. Yo tengo la suerte de vivir cerca de la primera parada del autobús 23, y puedo cogerlo cuando aún va vacío. Aún así he tardado una hora y media para llegar al trabajo. El centro está completamente saturado. Pero no ha sido nada en comparación con ayer: tardé dos horas y media en la ida, haciendo la mitad del trayecto andando, y casi tres horas a la vuelta, también andando bastante.
El sindicato de los trabajadores del metro, RMT, convoca cada año una huelga similar para reivindicar subidas salariales y protección contra los despidos. Una extorsión gangsteril en toda regla que secuestra la ciudad ante la impotencia de todos. Bob Crow, agitador de izquierdas y padrino del sindicato, anunciaba así la huelga.
¿Pero qué es lo que reivindican exactamente los huelguistas? No os lo perdáis:
To start with, it seems Bob and the bruvvers don't like the pay deal they've been offered. They reckon that a five year deal giving them inflation plus 1% for the first year, and inflation plus 0.5% pa thereafter, is just plain mean.
What! you exclaim. What the FFFF!!????
Isn't it a fact that tube workers are pretty well wedged already? Don't tube drivers get paid £40 grand as a starting salary, and station supervisors £35-39K? And come to that, isn't it a fact that earnings in the private sector are actually falling?
Yes, well, OK... park the pay issue. The RMT have other grievances.
First, they want a cast iron job guarantee. With such lucrative positions, members are naturally keen not to lose them. Especially given the chill blasts blowing above ground, where everyone else is facing the chop every single day.
And second, it turns out they're also striking for the reinstatement of two suspended comrades facing disciplinaries. One comrade is being victimised by means of a criminal trial for theft, and the other is being picked on over a trivial matter of opening the doors on the wrong side of his train, nearly losing his passengers overboard, and then lying about it afterwards.
El editorial del Daily Telegraph carga duro contra los huelguistas advirtiendo que su trabajo pronto será redundante (el DLR ya funciona sin conductores) y podremos prescindir de ellos.
The train drivers resemble the printers who used routinely to shut newspapers in the 1970s and 1980s, until they eventually found themselves out of work. Newspapers no longer require printers. Why, then, do trains need drivers? Automated trains already exist on the Docklands Light Railway and are used in cities around the world, especially in Japan, Singapore, America and continental Europe. Boris Johnson, the London Mayor (who might have helped motorists more by suspending parking restrictions and the congestion charge) should tell Mr Crow and his cohorts that the city has had enough, and will one day be in a position to do without them.
En definitiva, una verguenza. Escribiendo en caliente me identifico completamente con Working Class Tory:
They [the strikers] deserve to be sacked, those who refused to strike deserve to be promoted, and Bob Crow deserves nothing more than a ticket on a very, very, very slow, dangerous and rusty ship to North Korea.
Aunque creo que en frío también...
