Health and safety

To all Train Operators and Instructor Operators on the Victoria Line, from Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary:

Dear Colleagues,

BREAKDOWN OF MACHINERY OF NEGOTIATION: VICTORIA LINE UPGRADE SAFETY AND TRAINING ISSUES- LONDON UNDERGROUND

Further to my letter dated 27th January 2011 regarding the issues over Sensitive Edge Activation, a number of other issues have been bought to my attention concerning the Victoria Line Upgrade. The General Grades Committee has considered this matter and taken the decision to ballot all Victoria Line Train Operator members for industrial action short of a strike with a view to protecting you from being forced to work unsafely and unfairly blamed for accidents.

TUBE UNION RMT today demanded an immediate halt to staffing and maintenance cuts as an investigation report revealed that crumbling infra-structure and staffing cuts led to a potentially-lethal tube derailment last year.

The derailment happened between Earl's Court and Gloucester Road on the Piccadilly line at 5.30am on 12 May 2010. The train consisted of two locos, two wagons and a track machine.

Joint RMT/ASLEF/TSSA Newsletter following the Service control Health and Safety council meeting, March 2011. Read the text below; click '1 attachment' / file name to download the newsletter.

A number of issues were raised prior to the beginning of normal business

Breach of collective bargaining principle

General Grades Committee decision:

That we note the resolution from our Finsbury Park branch and accept its proposal. We therefore instruct the General Secretary to conduct the ballot of our Victoria Line driver members for action short of strikes as soon as practical, with the title “Breakdown of machinery of negotiation: Victoria Line upgrade safety and training issues”.

RMT General Grades Committee decision on DISI:

That we note and accept the report from our lead officer for London Underground. Accordingly, we instruct the General Secretary to issue as soon as possible a circular with the following wording:

RMT is completely opposed to section 2.2 of version 3 of the D.I.S.I. that states “Generally the train operator will be the most appropriate person to assess the defect. However in some cases the controller may decide to arrange for somebody else to attend the train and carry out the assessment.”

Val Barzey of RMT's LU Engineering branch reports on the RMT Health & Safety Advisory Conference held on 16 February:

Greg Hewitt – Chair

Greg commented that the HSE is more an Advisory body than Regulators. The aim of the government is to lift the burden of Employment laws. They intend to reduce the no. of regulations, attacking workers rights. H & S inspections have been cut across the board, inadequately enforcing the law and there has been a reduction in enforcement notices. There were 69% reduction in full inspections and 48% reduction in prosecutions.

There were 2 reviews carried out last year, Vince Cable reducing regulations and the Lord Young Review of the operation of H & S laws and the growth of the compensation culture – Common Sense Common Safety.

TUBE UNION RMT warned of more tube chaos for passengers as it emerged that as part of the TfL cuts programme the frequency of safety-critical inspections is being slashed from twice a week to once a week.

In a safety licensing concession requested by LU the twice weekly inspection of track and infrastructure in sidings and depots will be cutback to just once a week. These inspections are in the areas of highest traffic anywhere on the network with fleet constantly being shunted in and out.

RMT General Grades Committee decision ...

That we note the absence of a reply from London Underground on this matter. We instruct the General Secretary to urgently contact the company demanding a reply.

We also seek the views of the relevant branch, Stratford no.1, on how this matter should be pursued, and instruct the General Secretary to place this matter back in front of the GGC once those views have been received.

HOW LONG TIL SOMEONE DIES? That's the question we're asking now that management have ignored our safety concerns over the sensitive edge technology used on the new 09 stock. For more details, please download a copy of this leaflet by clicking on the attachment below.