PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2012 :: RMTnews 23 industry. Due to the persistence of the local RMT branch and the active campaigning by some of who were injured, the union pushed for Network Rail’s Safe Plant Working Group (SPWG) to set up a group to look at the issue. The group first met in March 2008 considered an analysis of runaway incidents and sought to establish common causes and possible solutions. The group then considered what the rail industry had done post- Tebay to protect workers. The group believed that up to 20 per cent of the runaway incidents analysed could have been prevented by some type of secondary protection. Finally a paper was presented on available forms of secondary protection, their design, uses, advantages and associated risks. Network Rail agreed to source a company that could manufacture an item of equipment that would provide additional secondary protection to workers. The first trials of the treadle (see picture) demonstrated that it could provide a 12-second warning of runaways to track workers yet a year passed and little progress had been made. Further trials proved successful but little progress was made. By the end of last year Network Rail finally promised the equipment would be delivered to an agreed timetable. RMT general secretary Bob Crow has now written to Network Rail to demand that the company stops prevaricating and gives a definitive timetable for the guaranteed introduction of the secondary protection system. “I know, from press reports, that the money originally allocated for Director’s bonuses is being considered for safety projects. “Perhaps if this money was channelled into this project my members would begin to recognise the absolute commitment to safety which I believe you hold. “The company’s other programmes will not do what secondary protection will do, which is to give track workers one last chance to escape with their lives should all the other systems fail. “One last chance is all we are asking for; you have it in your power to give them that last chance,” he said. President’s column INVEST IN SAFE PUBLIC TRANSPORT We mark the eighth anniversary of the Tebay rail disaster, where RMT members Colin Buckley, Darren Burgess, Chris Waters and Gary Tindall lost their lives. On 15 February 2004, a 16-tonne, steel-laden, railway trolley - its hydraulic brakes disabled by a sub- contractor to avoid the expense of maintaining them - ran away into the darkness at Shap summit, the highest point on Britain’s railway. Three miles later it ploughed through a work gang killing four men outright and leaving five physically and psychologically traumatised. Eight years on RMT members are asking, where is the secondary protection and warning systems that could have saved our members that night? Mandatory secondary protection on Network Rail infrastructure is still not a reality. At a Lancaster Trades Council meeting last year, a retired RMT member told me: “we support NHS staff, council workers and teachers fighting for their pensions, but we have unfinished business with Network Rail over secondary protection that we can’t forget”. RMT’s Lancaster branch organised a commemoration event at the memorial south of Tebay village attended by assistant general secretary Mick Cash, RMT executive member Kevin Morrison, regional organisers Andy Warnock- Smith, John MacDonald and Craig Johnston and RMT members and their families including Tom Angus who was amongst those on duty at Tebay in 2004. As Bob Crow has said, Network Rail must stop prevaricating and give us a definitive timetable for the guaranteed introduction of secondary protection. After Tebay, Network Rail introduced 'slippers' (scotches to inhibit wheel movement on a gradient), which it discontinued due to concerns about passenger train derailments from 'slippers' left on the line. RMT’s 2007 AGM backed the campaign for secondary protection led by Tom Angus and Lancaster Branch. In January 2008, RMT pressure on Network Rail revealed 20% of runaway vehicles are uncontrolled by any secondary protection. In August 2008 the first ‘rear guard’ prototype was demonstrated at Shrewsbury and trials took place in May 2009. In March 2010 a further trial was commissioned on a South Devon heritage railway and in January 2011 testing on the mainline at Newton Abbot proved the device works. In November 2011 Network Rail promised deployment before the 8th anniversary of Tebay in February 2012. That promise blatantly wasn’t kept and questions are being asked over Network Rail’s commitment to the project. RMT’s National Health and Safety Conference this month in Doncaster will hear members’ safety concerns with renewed urgency. This month a Parliamentary group on Occupational Safety and Health described lethal dust fibres in schools as a “national scandal”, warning 75 per cent of schools expose children, teachers and other staff to carcinogens. Over 140 teachers died from the rare asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma in the past 10 years. The Health and Safety Executive reports asbestos causes 4,000 work- related deaths in the UK every year. The prevalence of asbestos throughout transport and energy industries is well known. Not only was asbestos the fire retardant of choice in building materials, its use was endemic in train and shipbuilding for lagging and insulation. As aging structures deteriorate, workers and passengers are increasingly exposed to the risk of inhaling these deadly fibres. This all demonstrates the need for a National Transport Plan to renew, refurbish and rebuild Britain’s transport infrastructure safely and with proper environmental and social planning. This would be an essential tool to create skilled, union jobs of great benefit to society now and in the future. Unfortunately, the current Con Dem coalition government is making £9 billion of cuts to public transport spending and the Labour opposition confirms that it will keep £6 billion of these. RMT will continue to put forward the alternative for public investment in a fully renationalised, publicly controlled transport network. Alex Gordon