The purpose of the trade unions was to stop exploitation of the workers. To give them rights, protect them from ‘fat cat capitalists’ who would otherwise have children up chimneys for tuppence a day. So what happens when the workers become the fat cats?

Some tube train drivers earn over £100,000 a year. Many earn between 80 to 100k. The minority, according to the official figures published yesterday under a Freedom of Information request, earn under 60k. Those figures don’t include overtime. Unbelievably.

I’m not saying tube drivers don’t do an important job. One that millions just like me use every working day. It’s not easy to sit there for a few hours pressing a handle. Staying awake. Resisting the urge to take drugs. Opening the doors. Shutting them again. It’s a very complicated job and I would never try to demean it. Never. Ok, its not exactly rocket science but the minimum requirement is to be awake. Though if this fails the ‘dead man’s handle’ operates and the train stops anyway. So the minimum job requirement is the ability to stay conscious for most of a 5 hour shift. And that’s nothing to be demeaned.

Junior doctors earn about £24k a year. And work the kind of hours that would have the trade unions in constant strike mode. Ok, doctors can later on aspire to greatness and riches and there’s less call for ‘private work’ as a train operator. For obvious reasons. But still, 100k a week and still they strike. Currently about the driver sacked for failing 3 successive drugs tests.

Bus drivers earn a fraction of their underground colleagues yet arguably have a much more difficult, much more stressful job.

Everyone hates bankers because they earn a fortune and cost the nation billions of pounds of taxpayers money. The most outspoken in this regard: Union bosses. Yet train drivers earn four times the national average and the transport system costs the taxpayer billions each year.

These are Corbyn’s people. The Unions. Representing the workers to ensure they always get a fair deal. And if that deal becomes a bit unfair, so much the better.

Airline pilots earn less as well. Like the one taking me to Sydney, via Singapore, later today. And most of tomorrow. And a bit of Wednesday. Don’t have ‘dead man’s handles’ on planes. Hmmmm…

Happy Monday

A xxxx