From 'RMT On The Trains' newsletter, August 2008

Another component of the new rulebook (guidelines!) is the introduction of the Competence assurance programme. This is being introduced to phase out the TD1 and TD2 system and instead we are going to have competence assessor DMTs (I know - a contradiction in terms!) who roam the system anonymously making sure we can drive trains and assessing things like making announcements and braking properly, etc over a two year period. Sneaky, huh!

As well as this, there will no longer be ATOR where you pass or fail but "continuous development". Reps had to recently intervene, however, when Victoria line management tried to make the 5 day block a 4 day one! The union position is that we should have 5 full days of proper training in order to do our jobs safely and not have days for "corporate events" where we are told how great the company is. We need to keep a close eye on how this pans out as we believe that the company is trying to "dumb down" our job and make it more like working in McDonalds where it is easy to hire and fire. Don't worry you will get a gold star!

Train Big Brother

Along with being followed around by our white shirted friends, management are talking about bringing in forward facing cameras in trains for "safety reasons". OK, then can we have cameras in interviews where management refuse you a rep to make sure they are doing their job safely? We all know who we would nominate for eviction!