TUBE DRIVERS BALLOTED OVER TUBE TRAIN SAFETY

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2011 :: RMTnews 5 R MT is balloting tube drivers for action short of a strike in a dispute over safety. The ballot is over four particular aspects of London Underground’s Operational Effectiveness Programme which are unacceptable and potentially dangerous. LUL has introduced new ‘sensitive-edge’ procedures’ on the S stock on the sub-surface lines, despite the objections of drivers and health and safety representatives to the overriding of current failsafe systems. Management wants to remove the inbuilt function which stops a train if an object is caught in the door. The changes would allow the driver to over-ride the sensitive edge technology and proceed after just a visual check. Coupled with the planned reduction of station staff, the dangers are compounded and any accidents would immediately be blamed on the driver. The proposed new procedures for reversing a train would allow a driver to reverse a train from a forward driving position without any assistance. This would increase the risk to staff and passengers and does not comply with the ALARP “(as low as reasonably practicable) established safety principle. The issue of ‘platform re- categorisation’ involves ordering drivers to ‘self dispatch’ as a consequence of the massive reductions in platform-based staff and takes no account of the serious faults already uncovered by RMT in the platform camera system. The union considers this a recipe for accidents and injuries to passengers. Plans to carrying passengers over a shunt signal would delay the movement of the train service and potentially holding people in tunnel sections for longer than necessary. London underground is now unilaterally imposing Operational Standards Notice (OSN) 101 to bulldoze through these measures against the objections of union representatives. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the union was demanding an end to the reckless policy of expecting drivers to override door failsafe systems after a potentially fatal incident in which a passenger jumped from a moving train and another was caught in its open doors. “Along with the ‘sensitive edge’ procedures, a bunch of other unsafe procedures are being bulldozed through in the dash for cuts, and to cover up the impact of reductions in station staff, under the guise of “operational effectiveness”. “It is our members who have to deal with the consequences of these ill-conceived policies. “We have tried to get LUL to see sense, but they have continued to put cash and job cuts ahead of passenger safety and we now have no choice but to ballot for action to stop these dangerous proposals being imposed without agreement,” he said. TUBE DRIVERS BALLOTED OVER TUBE TRAIN SAFETY