pardon

gotta love boris. there are times when he is priceless.
he has asked his twitter followers to bombard the aslef union's website in a bid to persuade 'sensible' tube drivers not to strike on the day of the royal wedding.
ken livingstone might be right that the use of twitter by boris is 'crazy' and that boris should stop tapping at his blackberry and start talking directly to the union and the drivers to sort it out.
yet it maybe that boris has an idea. perhaps boris thinks that if his 130,000 twitter fans (and those that read about his idea) agree with him and take the action he suggests then a message will be sent to the union: that they have little support in their proposed strike.
for most of us on the outside the dispute seems to be over a difference of opinion. london underground say that the union is tearing up a long standing agreement over pay and working conditions, in this case it is about the part of the 1996 agreement where the unions accepted a wage increase for working some bank holidays. the union say that they are now working all bank holidays.
what the union want is triple time (approximately £360) and a day of in lieu.
some might call it greedy, others miht call it sticking it to the man.
given that bob crow (on a basic of around £90,000 in 2009 - different sources have differing amounts) has already made a point of saying that if there are redundancies announced (and he wasn't just talking about on the london transport system) near the royal wedding then the rmt union would seriously consider coming out on strike in solidarity with those workers.

the royal wedding is a precursor to what will happen during the london olympics in 2012.
there is a part of me that wants to see a strong union defending the pay and conditions of its workers i am just not crazy about unions that will strike at the drop of a hat.

though if i am honest it might be that there are enough staff who work on london transport tubes and buses who are less than helpful and so annoy me or it might just be that bob crow and his cronies get right up my nose.

maybe ken is right: boris needs to get involved. he needs to get involved not because he is the man to solve the problem, he needs to get involved because he is the mayor of london and frankly this is part of his job.