END CASUALISATION ON THE TRACK

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: march 2013 :: RMTnews 12 END CASUALISATION ON THE TRACK RMT calls for reversal of job cuts and all track works brought in house Broken rails, overhead line failures and routine safety breaches are causing chaos on the rail network and members working on track maintenance and renewals believe that the root of the problem is staff cuts and the casualisation of the industry. RMT has long-running serious concerns over corner- cutting and the drive for profit at the expense of safety. In one recent incident reported by the union a track worker had the fingertips from three fingers cut off when a high output renewals machine went over his hand. Other incidents raised by RMT with Network Rail and its contractors include a ballast regulator operated by a single member of staff, trollies placed on an open running line and near misses with staff walking on what they believed to be protected areas. Increasingly, there are problems caused by a failure to consider, plan, establish and then brief out to staff a simple safe system of work (SSOW). Staff are also undertaking work for which they are not competent to carry out and workers being subjected to a culture of fear – a fear that if they do speak out on safety they will not be given any further work. This is leading to an underreporting of accidents and concerns over the safety implications of long hours. RMT News spoke to a member who has witnessed all of these problems first hand. After working 30 years as a permanent employee he has been forced into becoming an agency worker on Network Rail contracts. “I was appalled at the chaotic nature of how the site was run with several engineering supervisors overseeing workers from several different agencies, none of whom i had ever seen before. “These ES’s were shouting differing instructions at us and, having been told to undertake a task from one only to be told to do something else by another, we were verbally abused by the original ES for failing to complete his instructions. “The calibre and competence of many of the agency staff on what was a simple stressing job was frightening and there was even twice the number of staff than was really needed if those on site were either competent and or interested in the job,”