RMT DEMANDS SAFETY REVIEW AFTER TUBE FLOODING

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2011 :: RMTnews 4 RMT demanded an urgent review of safety procedures on London Underground after flooding of Charing Cross station by water from the Trafalgar Square fountains revealed that the incident almost ended in disaster. On the morning of March 24, a pipe feeding the Trafalgar Square fountains was severed by contractors with the result that 375,000 litres of water flooded in to Charing Cross tube station. LU activated their “Silver Control” procedure, overseen by Chief Operating Officer Howard Collins, and shut down services and began pumping out the water. Throughout the incident log it was clear that there was pressure to get the service back on as soon as possible. At 16.38 a decision was taken to turn the current back on, that request was just about to be actioned when it was realized that there were still staff on the track at Embankment. That lack of “command and control”, admitted to in the report’s findings, could have led to a disaster. In the “Silver Control” conclusions, LU admit that: • Charing Cross should have “remained closed to all traffic” • There should have been one single point of contact to “monitor track access” • A member of staff should have been logging “staff/contractor movements” • “All involved” should have been using “correct lines of communication” • Management did not have appropriate Formal Incident Management training RMT general secretary Bob Crow demanded urgent assurances that the kind of shambolic management that happened at Charing Cross, guided right from the very top, should never be allowed to happen again. “We were just seconds away from a potential tragedy and the LU internal report says clearly that those failures were down to poor communication, lack of appropriate training and an absence of proper command and control. “A year away from the Olympics Londoners will be rightly shocked at these findings,” he said. The union pointed out that the combined pressure to keep services moving at all costs and the London mayor’s planned £7.6 billion cuts would make matters even worse. “Rather than their usual barrage of misinformation we want Boris Johnson and his officials to start taking this crisis management of the tube seriously before we have a disaster on our hands. “We are already in the process of balloting for action on the Victoria Line over major safety concerns and we will have no hesitation in taking similar action to protect safety on the tube network,” Bob said. R MT train cleaning crews employed by the Mitie company and servicing First Great Western trains at all depots are to be balloted in the long- running dispute over pensions, payment of wages and a failure to communicate. Cardiff and Swansea train cleaners’ have already taken three days of 24 hour strike action in the fight for dignity at work. Mitie recently announced a massive 13 per cent jump in profits and the company brands itself as an “outsourcing specialist” mopping up facilities contracts in both the private and public sectors. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the bosses were forever demanding that low paid workers should bend the knee in the name of profit. “ But in Wales we have a group of cleaning staff who are standing up to the bullies and they deserve the full support of the whole trade union movement. “The Mitie cleaners are shining a spotlight on just how these facilities companies operate and how they treat their low paid staff,” he said. Mitie has only offered 1.25 per cent pay rise for 2010 and no more than one per cent from April 2011. The company is also dragging its feet over sorting out wage discrepancies and pensions and has even taken to blaming the previous contractor (ISS) for not passing adequate information to them during the TUPE process. “RMT does not accept that and we will not sit back and allow management to treat our members with complete and utter contempt,” Bob Crow said. RMT DEMANDS SAFETY REVIEW AFTER TUBE FLOODING ENTIRE MITIE CONTRACT BALLOTED FOR ACTION Tube seconds away from disaster due to poor communication, lack of training and absence of proper command and control