First item on the agenda was a short speech from Mike Brown telling the org/union leaders that there would be no discussion on Uber.
At this point the group should have got up en masse and walked out the meeting.
The trade have been having these meetings with the TfL commissioner for over 5 years...although few and far between with Mike Brown who refused meetings for 8 months last year.
What has been achieved from these secret squirrel, un-minuted, confidential meetings.... I’ll tell you.... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
And the reason the orgs won’t make a fuss is that they’ve all signed a good behaviour clause in order to attend.
So why do they go.... possibly because it makes these expensive no marks feel important.
TfL have put strings on our org leaders and dangle them around like puppets.
Gone is the militancy, gone is the fire in the belly, gone is the Dunkirk spirit and soon gone will be their memberships.
Rank and file drivers are starting to sit up and realise, their orgs are not fighting for them...they’ve become benign collaborators.
With the emergence of driver led groups such as the Independent Taxi Alliance (ITA), Drivers are waking up to the fact that they are being ripped off by the orgs and their subs (in certain cases) are financing life stiles that rank and file drivers could never aspire to.
It’s easy when you have employed status, large salaries, luxury company cars, fabulous offices, to say “let’s sit back and see what happens....wait and see... don’t protest”. And yet, what do the trade as a whole get back for its money, a lanyard, a sticker, and if your lucky...a diary.
One org has formed an enterprise company where it’s written into their constitution they can still get paid even if deselected in an election, or retired.
The political alliances of our Unions will not see them take issue against a labour Mayor. What good is that to our trade?
60% of the trade do not belong to any trade org and to be totally honest, looking at the representation offered, who can blame them.
Of the 40%, most will say, the only reason they subscribe to an org is for legal cover... this can be obtained privately at a considerable saving.
Our trade media are very careful what they say in their respective publications, for fear of upsetting their advertisers. Many drivers never read the trade press for this reason and again, who can blame them.
Some Good News Though.
I heard last week that one org will not be advertising certain trade apps in any of its future publications... and about time too. This is to be applauded and should be emulated throughout all trade media, published and social.
For years, our trade under poor leadership, has looked to fight the wrong criminals, the wrong enemy.
The truth is, we should have been fighting the enemy within. The ones who sold us down the river for a seat at the fold up table.
Militant groups like the RMT and then the UCG were formed in stark defiance of the old guard United Trade Group (UTG) who had signed up to John Mason’s one-sided engagement policy.
Yet under the new Mayor, they too signed a hamstringing engagement policy with its good behaviour clause.
The trade is being led down the wrong valley again by woefully inadequate leadership, like the heroic light brigade at Balaclava, massacred, victims of extreme poor generals.
We lost that battle, but we didn’t lose the war because we then sent in the heavy brigade
That’s what the ITA are offering the trade, a heavy brigade.
Have we learned from history?
Who would have thought ten years ago that today we would be totally outnumbered by one PH company, surrounded like the troops at Rorke’s drift
John ‘the cabby’ Kennedy warned us what was happening, when he was chair of the RMT.
But no one listened and he left the battlefield.
Semtex warned us that men were coming to kill us.
He also warned us about the enemy within.
But no one listened and he too left.
The ITA are now telling us, we don’t need these expensive un-achieving orgs, we’ve got nothing to lose and now is the time for drivers to fight back.
They've got a very good bass section mind, but they got no top tenors for sure.
This time drivers are listening, and starting to take notice. Every protest draws more and more combatants ready to fight for their job.
Our band of brothers gets bigger week by week.
No surrender, Stronger Together!
TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT FROM THE ITA:
Everytime TfL and another complicit mayor makes a decision that is unjust and affects our trade, we must make TfL and the mayor pay, and inform the media of wrongdoings. A single protest has no real effect. We cannot sit on our hands and hope bad people do right by us.
If you're asking if Mike Brown rang me at home that night, the answer is no, Rome wasn't built in a day.
Protests are an important 'part' of the process, but don’t think for one minute TfL didn't feel the punch this week.
We will win or die trying. If we die, we'll take some of them with us
• ALL MEETINGS MUST BE MINUTED!
• WE ALL MUST KNOW WHAT TFL ARE SAYING, AND WHAT INDIVIDUALS ARE PUTTING THEIR NAME TOO!
• NO MORE SECRETS FROM DRIVERS!
• ALL 23K DRIVERS ARE AFFECTED BY WHAT GOES ON IN THESE MEETINGS. MEMBERS OR NOT, THEY SHOULD BE INFORMED!
• NO MORE TFL SECRETS!
5 comments:
To be honest Jim, it's not Mike Brown demanding secrecy, it's the org leaders.
They don't want you to know what they agree to.
They don't want you to know what they are not saying on your behalf.
Mainly coming from Unite, closely followed by Mc.
It's a case of nothing to see here
As I told you Jim nothing would happen at the meeting and the demo has achieved nothing and lyft are on there way sooner than we think
I have to agree with your first comment it’s not just TFL but all the org not talking to the drivers/ members why?? Why o why did any respectable trade union/org sign up to such a dictatorship because that’s what it is. If you told what you can and can not talk about, what happened to our democracy.
From what I see last week was successful and it’s great to see moor driver are getting behind this but we have 24k drivers. We all need to wake up. The trade org/ reps need to wake up as well start taking note of what their members want not what they want with their secret meeting it’s the old story don’t rock the boat. This is why after 35 years in this trade iI’m not a member of any trade org. They should all be hanging their heads in shame.
Just like to add this is a very well written article with some home truths got the trade unions/org.
There is a mistake Jim there is not 23000 green and yellow badges combined a lot less
I know of a knowledge student who is being pinged and ponged on appearances all over areas of London I have never heard of... but more recently he was asked to re state a run he was doing twice before obtaining a 'non score' because he stated during the run "regents" square instead of saying "regent" square.
I strongly question the reason why an examiner would 'non score' a British born and bred person of any colour or gender but with good a command of English and would very much doubt his would occur by fear of mocking someone who may not have such a good standard of spoken English which I have noticed is apparently no l there are more in the recent years who's spoken English longer a strong requirement to hold a London License.
Surely the attainment of a good directional knowledge and instant recognition of points of destination are key to the making of a good London taxi driver and I am becoming more and more concerned as to the quality of drivers being passed out particularly in Suburban areas where sat nav's are being used in the most basic of point to point destinations.
I recently watched the Channel 4 knowledge program more than once and am astonished as to how selective it was and made me think how much better students are on completion according to that program... until I get on the back of a rank and regularly see the driver on point looking perplexed and worried how to drive the passengers to their destination... without a post code for what turns out time and again to be a bread and butter run.
I thought we fought off TFL attempts to get the knowledge through computerised means but it is abundantly clear the sat navs are being used on the most obvious routes and looking at the identifier numbers of drivers using them its becoming obvious.
A hard working student who well knowledged directionally is good potential licencee should be rewarded so, and pedantic showing off by examiners to 'some' students leads to nothing but resentment and must stop.
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