Ross Clark calls for workers to be sacked - again
Troublesome Southern Rail staff should be sacked and replaced with driverless trains to cut costs and ‘end strikes for good’.
So says a Spectator columnist who wants Amazon workers who ‘bleat’ about poor working conditions to lose their jobs to robots.
Writing yesterday, Ross Clark said Transport Secretary Chris Grayling should dole out public money for rail companies to invest in technology ‘which renders not only the guards redundant but the drivers, too’.
Clark has previously said Amazon warehouse workers should be sacked and replaced with robots if they ‘bleat too much about pay and conditions’.
In his latest piece, Clark argued ‘trains don’t really need drivers’, and that ‘investment in driverless rail technology would not only end strikes for good, it would hugely reduce running costs‘.
Clark writes:
“Southern Railway has come unstuck tickling around with a modernisation plan which doesn’t even involve redundancies.
It just shows that nothing will please the rail union luddites. The government might as well take them head-on and abolish their members’ jobs for good.”
Nice!
His article follows a Sun editorial on Monday that said rail firms should be able to ‘crush’ strikers by ‘ordering them to return to work or face the dole’.
Adam Barnett is staff writer for Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter @AdamBarnett13
See: Murdoch’s Sun says ‘crush’ rail staff and sack them if they strike
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.
2 Responses to “Robot-loving Spectator hack says ‘abolish’ drivers to curb rail strikes”
Richard MacKinnon
I dont see the point of this article by Adam Barnett. How does he expect newspapers to report the train drivers strike? 100 of thousands of travellers affected. (That so many tried to get to their work tells you just how important their job is to them). A strike caused by a few hundred train drivers on a salary of 50K for a 4 day 35 hour week (very nice). Over what? What was the reason for the dispute? Not redundancies. No, it was over who closes the train doors.
Maybe Adam thinks The Sun should be a bit more even handed, and show a bit of sympathy for the drivers? Is that what it is Adam?
GodfreyR
The DLR has been running driverless commuter trains across east London for the past 25 years.