Please print the attached notice and share with all members

Anthony Codd has worked for LUL for over 35 years. He was a n Operational grade Q1A Duty Manager working in the Track Access Control Centre (TACC) before being, what we believe, unfairly summarily dismissed at a CDI in August 2018. 

An incident occurred back in January 2018, where a Track Access Controller (TAC) made an error that could have potentially endangered staff working on the track. This was, at the time, bought to the attention of Mr Codd who was the TACC Duty Manager on duty that night. 

Mr Codd dealt with the incident in a safe, professional manner, as he has dealt with 100's of previous incidents. In fact, 3 of the TASs who helped deal with this incident on the night, under Mr Codd’s direction and instruction, were nominated and received Bronze & Silver awards.

As per the usual 25 years plus custom in the TACC, Mr Codd, being an Operational Duty Manager, carried out an LDI on the member of staff, which he conducted in the very same way as he had carried out all of the previous LDI's which he had had to conduct in the past - none of these previous LDI's have ever been questioned by the senior TACC senior management. 

Several weeks after this incident, in March 2018, Anthony's Centurion Manager decided that the way that he had dealt with the incident and the subsequent LDI was unacceptable and decided to re-interview all the staff involved. This senior manager believed that the sanction given to the TAC at their LDI was not severe enough and in fact open stated they believed that the TAC in question should have been dealt with via CDI.

Unbelievably and out of the blue, in March 2018, Anthony Codd was then stood down by the TACC Centurion Manager, pending their further investigations into the incident. At this time, Mr Codd was given no further reason or explanation. He was left stood down at home with no contact from the TACC senior management team for several months - this is against ACAS guidelines - which the company state they adhere to. This uncertainty obviously led to Mr Codd becoming very worried about his future and by simply being left in limbo to stagnate at home with absolutely no contact from his senior manager, this obviously brought on stress and anxiety which has had a huge impact on his health. We believe management knew exactly what they were doing and this is a clear bullying tactic, nothing more than being sent to Coventry to all intents and purposes. 

Mr Codd eventually, in June 2018 on a Saturday morning, received through the post a copy of his CDI brief and an invitation to attend the CDI, but, as if the shock of that was not enough, just 1 day later on the Sunday afternoon, he was visited at home in person by the Band 4 Senior Manager to the TACC Centurion Manager and physically handed another notice to attend his CDI. He had not been contacted to say this was going to happen or indeed to ask permission and we believe is a completely unacceptable practice to invade an employee’s privacy unannounced at their home.

When Anthony Codd finally went to CDI, it was very clear that the CDI panel did not believe what he or his rep had to say and had a preconceived opinion of everything in the CDI brief. We believe that the company have withheld thus far, important paperwork and supporting evidence which had been requested by Mr Codd and his rep, that we believe would have gone a long way to mitigating against the trumped-up charges put forward by Anthony's Centurion Manager – the same manager that has made no secret of the fact that they personally dislike him and simply wanted rid. 

The CDI panel did not try and seek out any further evidence or investigate the mitigation that had been put forward during the CDI, but instead thought it was sufficient to just take the word of the TACC Centurion Manager who incidentally has never been an operational grade member of staff nor vocationally competent to perform any role within the TACC and has only been in their substantive managerial role less than a year. The CDI panel did however state that the TACC Centurion Manager did not follow certain procedures correctly and as per standard, which is ironic as this is the exact same basis of why they had sent Anthony Codd to CDI!

Thus far, no one in the TACC has been officially told what happened during or post this incident or why Anthony Codd has been sacked which is absolutely astounding as one of the main reasons for conducting a CDI is to find route causes and learn from mistakes and contrary to popular belief, not to simply punish and sack our people. This has not happened and we believe that if the same incident occurred again, then there is nothing to say that one of the 4 remaining Duty Managers may well deal with it in the exact same way as Mr Codd did. If what Mr Codd did was so serious that he was subsequently dismissed for, then surely an action should have been put in place to ensure that this never happens again?? Does the senior manager want to give us more rope to hang ourselves?

We truly believe that this whole witch hunt to get rid of Anthony Codd is part of the bigger plan to reduce the number of Operational Duty Mangers in the TACC from 8 down to 4. There had already been 3 Duty Manager positions left vacant during the past 2 years, and the MATS FC reps were told that they were going to be looked at after the last round of LU Transformation. It now looks like local Senior Management teams are trying to implement their own mini departmental Transformations by stealth, something that our reps have raised and objected to at the MATS FC & H&S tables as obviously such items are subject to consultation and negotiation. 

Anthony has been instrumental in keeping engineering hours safe and has never been afraid to speak and stand up for what is right and always fought against unsafe practices that the company have tried to bring in, in order to dumb down engineering hours safety, section 15 being one of them. Maybe this is another reason he has been stitched up?

We believe that this case has wide spread implications to all Operational Staff and Managers who have to make on the spot safety critical decisions and deal with incidents as and when they happen. If your senior manager does not like you, will they be able to look back at how an incident has been dealt with and send you to a CDI because you forgot to cross a T somewhere albeit the incident was dealt with safely and no-one suffered any injury because of your actions? We could all be in the firing line!

Our RMT members of all grades within the TACC are being balloted for strike action and we are expecting a resounding YES vote to be put forward - showing the company how disgusted we are with the treatment of Anthony Codd and by the lies from senior TACC management that led to his dismissal.

We believe that if mistakes were made, then surely the only answer would be to take corrective action in the form of retraining, but more importantly learn from the incident and improve safety.

Anthony Codd has lodged an appeal but some 6 weeks or so on has still not been given a date for the hearing. We are extremely confident that when we are given the opportunity to lay all of the mitigation on the table, that the company will have no choice but to lessen their sanction and indeed look at the managers who allowed this injustice to get to where it is.

It was clearly stated at the Engineering Branch on the night that the resolution was put through and unanimously supported, that all of our members across all of LU Engineering are equally disgusted by the heavy-handed bullying tactics of the TACC Senior Management and all functions will fully support the TACC in the fight in ensure the reinstatement of Anthony Codd and likewise that the this kind of underhanded bullying of our members will not be tolerated.

This is a clear injustice and misuse of power.

We fully expect the CDI outcome original sanction of Summary Dismissal to be over turned by LU management to avoid an industrial dispute kicking off which will be extremely damaging for engineering hours working.