RMT SAYS ‘KEEP FIRE SAFETY REGS’

RMTnews :: april 2006 :: www.rmt.org.uk 6 T ube workers who assisted in rescue operations after the July 7 bombings joined a lobby of the Deputy Prime Minister’s office last month to demand the retention of essential fire regulations introduced after the 1987 King’s Cross fire. Train operator John Boyle MBE, who assisted injured passengers at Aldgate station, delivered a letter to minister Jim Fitzpatrick arguing that the ‘Section 12’ regulations, which stipulate minimum fire-safety standards in sub-surface stations nationwide, are needed more than ever after the July bombings. The government intends to scrap the regs and replace them with the far less specific Fire Safety Order after running them in parallel for six months from October. London Underground has already downgraded its own fire-safety regime, despite fierce opposition from its own principal fire engineer and union safety reps. Changes imposed by LUL have relegated fire-safety to become an adjunct of general health and safety policy, done away with the existing fire inspection programme and even abolished the post of specialist fire-safety advisor. The union urged the Railways Inspectorate to intervene to get LUL to suspend the changes, and renewed its call to ministers not to scrap regulations that impose minimum fire-safety standards on sub-surface railway stations throughout Britain. In an internal email outlining his opposition to changes to LUL’s fire-safety management regime, which were imposed at the end of February despite union protests, LUL fire engineer Martin Weller concluded that he could not support the proposals. He said it would be “inadvisable in the extreme to reduce the breadth of specialist Fire Safety Management expertise within COO”. “I know of no organisation in the UK of a similar size to us and even approaching our fire risk profile which does not retain this type of management expertise,” he wrote. AGS Pat Sikorski said that the appalling events of July 7 showed that strict minimum fire-safety standards were needed more than ever. “The existing regulations lay down fire-safety measures that are simply not specified in the new Fire Safety Order, and we have been campaigning hard alongside the Fire Brigades Union and RMT’s parliamentary group to keep them in place,” he said. He said that the views of front-line workers and emergency services deserve to be taken seriously, as fire-safety was too important to be left to the discretion of employers. RMT also expressed amazement that the government does not even know where such fire safety regulations are in place and called for a full public enquiry into Underground Fire safety. During parliamentary questions in which the government admitted that it does not keep statistics on whether the regulations apply at either national rail or metro rail stations. Questions put by RMT’s parliamentary group convenor John McDonnell to minister Jim Fitzpatrick also revealed that the government does not hold records of where rail bosses had applied for exemptions to the regulations. The government needs to explain how they have came to the view that the regulations are too prescriptive if they do not even hold information on where there have been requests for exemptions. RMT TELLS GOVERNMENT ‘KEEP FIRE-SAFETY REGS’ PROTEST: Train operator John Boyle MBE hands in letter of protest to minister Jim Fitzpatrick with assistant general secretary Pat Sikorski to demand the retention of fire-safety regs ADDRESS: Jim Fitzpatrick addresses the lobby