NO TO UNTRAINED VOLUNTEERS ON THE TUBE DURING THE OLYMPICS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2011 :: RMTnews 5 R MT has cast a public safety warning over London Underground’s Olympic strategy for staffing stations over plans to use “non-licensed volunteers” to work on stations doing “way finding”- a coded term for crowd control - a skill and task that should only be carried out by experienced competent members of staff. The main reason behind LU’s plan to use volunteers is their admission to the unions that they need an extra 400-600 Olympic duties per day to able to cope with the demand. This admission demolishes the company’s case for dumping station staff posts and solidly proves RMT’s point that shedding 650 operational jobs this year was a short sighted and dangerous move that has now left them desperately short of personnel. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that using unqualified, non-professional, untrained staff at key crowd control pressure points is a recipe for disaster with potentially lethal consequences. “With the Tube already at bursting point, and with millions more expected for the Olympics, the last thing needed is wholly unprepared volunteers controlling hundreds of thousands of passengers through stations like Oxford Circus or Stratford. “The union called on LUL to reverse 650 jobs cuts and to get back to the safe and sensible policy of having trained operational railway workers carrying out safety-critical operational railway tasks,” he said. R MT has demanded an end to the “reckless” policy of expecting drivers to override a door failsafe system after a potentially fatal incident in which a passenger jumped from a moving train and another was caught in its open doors. The incident, at Oxford Circus station, happened after the ‘sensitive edge’ door- safety system – which immobilises a train if anything is caught in its doors – was over- ridden on a Victoria Line train during the evening peak on July 11. RMT has told LUL that it is in dispute with the company after it refused to suspend the practice, despite warnings that it was putting the demand to minimise delays ahead of passenger safety. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the incident showed what happens when management puts pressure on people to override a device designed to keep passengers safe. “It is our members who have to deal with the consequences, and we have tried to get LUL to see sense, but if they continue to put cash ahead of passenger safety we will have no choice but to ballot for whatever action is necessary to put a stop to this reckless policy.” RMT London regional organiser Steve Hedley said that members were adamant that they should not be asked to override the sensitive-edge system, and for good reason. “We have been asking LUL to end this practice since it was introduced, but after this incident they know they are playing Russian roulette with passengers’ lives, on the Met and District lines as well as on the Victoria, and it has to stop,” he said. NO TO UNTRAINED VOLUNTEERS ON THE TUBE DURING THE OLYMPICS TUBE DOOR SAFETY OVERRIDE INCIDENT COULD HAVE BEEN FATAL