London Bus Driver Strike

[Deskdiary]

Most of London's bus drivers are on strike in a protest about pay equality.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30784623

It is reported that according to TfL less than 16% of the bus drivers in London voted in favour of industrial action.

Granted without knowing how many voted against strike action or total turnout this is like listening to one half of a 'phone call, but surely less than 16% 'ayes' resulting in a strike is patently absurd, isn't it?

[Old_Geezer]

And there was I thinking the authorities had arranged so many hoops to jump through that folk going on strike was no longer legally arrangeable to avoid the people being able to protest. Yes I can see why there would be a rumour that it must be illegally called then.

Are they saying 100% had a choice to vote and 84% couldn't make up their minds so went with the majority ?

[Gromit]

27,000 were elligible to vote.

7,000 actually did vote.

They were 85% in favour of striking.

It is rather like a by election with a low turnout. The MP still gets elected even though a small majority voted for him/her.

[Gromit]

At the recently Manchester Central By Election, turnout was low. The winner got 69% of the 18% turnout, and is now the area's MP.

[factor-fiction]

Gromit's figures work out at about 22% rather than 16% so I assume there has been some rounding by Gromit, or tfL have got it slightly wrong.
I suppose those that didn't vote can't really complain and should make sure they vote next time

[Svejk]

I wonder was it made difficult to vote. I'd expect a near 100% turnout for something like this which has such a direct bearing on the voters.

[lindapalmara]

Roll out plans to make it 40% of total membership before unions are allowed to strike.

[Old_Geezer]

Maybe do the same for electing MPs & councillors then.

[Cloverjo]

They could be shooting themselves in the foot, couldn't they? The companies could agree that ok, we'll pay everyone the same rate, and then put them all on the lowest rate.

[ToraToraTora]

More than half of those that voted voted in favour, end of.

[ToraToraTora]

Like in any election ballot you have no credibility in moaning about the result if you can't be ar5ed to vote.

[Cloverjo]

Following from my previous point, I suppose the drivers on the lowest rates were the ones who voted, and are the people who striked; the others felt they were happy with the pay they had.

[Gromit]

My figures were from here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30534072

// Unite, which represents more than 27,000 bus workers across the 18 companies, said just under 7,000 people had voted in the ballot. //

[factor-fiction]

Thanks Gromit.
The paper's figures can't be made to tie in with TfL's either.
Even if the 'just under 7000' figure is 6500 then 85% of that would be 5526, and then if the 'more than 27000' figure was 27499, the overall percentage voting in favour would be just over 20%.
It's still quite a way from the 16% figure.

Nevertheless it's still extremely low

[Gromit]

85% voted in favour of Striking, and 15% against.
If first past the post is alright for politicians, not sure how they cannot accept it here.

Not sure I agree with the strike. The different bus companies are of different sizes and different tirnovers. Someone like Stagecoach with thousands of routes can probably afford to pay more than Ealing Community buses with just a couple of routes. Enforcing equal pay among 17 private companies is anti-competative.

[ludwig]

You can't really compare it with voting for MPs and the like. That's because there's no 'do nothing' option in the event of pathetic turn out for the election. Someone has to fill the the vacant position, so it's going to be whichever gets the most votes, even if they received a tiny percentage of the total electorate.

However, with industrial action, there's clearly a 'do nothing' option in the event that the majority of the workers don't care enough to vote one way or the other, and that option is to do nothing - ie take no action.

The proposed 40% quorum seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[ludwig]

Whichever candidate

[Quizmonster]

In May 2012, nine English cities…Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Wakefield, Coventry, Leeds and Bradford all rejected the Coalition plan for elected mayors. At the moment, it seems possible that Manchester might have one, though it appears to be causing rather a furore among the leaders of the various authorities within the area.

Whatever, it is clear that there does seem to be a “do-nothing” option in the matter of elected mayors. As regards the one England does have, Boris Johnson was elected in 2012 on a turnout of under 40%.

If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for the bus-drivers!

[ludwig]

That doesn't make any sense QM, but I'm glad you chipped in because it gives me a chance to mention Gordon Brown's 0% turnout for the Labour leadership election - that's got to be a record and still manage to get elected.

[Quizmonster]

Ludwig, my earlier post re Bojo/bus-drivers was perfectly comprehensible, if you care actually to read it in conjunction with your own comments about "voting for MPs and the like" and "there's no 'do nothing' option".

However - if you've tried that and still don't grasp it - I'll try to expand on it if you can be specific as to where precisely your difficulty with 'getting it' lies. Other than in matters requiring such grammatical/linguistic expansion as just promised, I'll leave it there.

PS.100% of Gordon's potential opponents "elected" not to oppose him...a stunning 'nem con' achievement. You say, "that's got to be a record and still manage to get ELECTED." (My caps) It seems you agree after all that he WAS elected, then! Precisely the point I was making in the earlier thread you refer to. Good to agree, innit?

[ludwig]

QM, So are you saying that all those cities had a mayoral election, but not enough people turned out to vote for any of the candidates, so they decided not to have Mayors after all?

If that's what happened, I can see a correlation between what you're saying and the point I made. Otherwise it completely fails to address it.