Health and safety

Winter Weather

The RMT industrial position is that as a working practise, staff clearing snow is something we do. However, the TSSA have a different view that they do not believe it is a job that staff should carry out
However, the safety issues including work place risk assessments, protection and equipment still remain. We continue to raise these with LUL both locally and at council level, and have also issued a special bulletin and pro-forma that is separate from this update giving advice on protection

ELCPS (EMERGENCY LOCAL CONTROL PANELS)

We note that London Underground Ltd continues to breach the settlement of our 2008 Casualisation dispute, in particular in its deployment of ICSAs, continuing use of agency staff, and plans to introduce mobile station supervision.

Noting the correspondence with our legal advisers, we instruct the General Secretary to send a letter to all LUL members reminding them of our ongoing industrial action in this dispute.

We note the report from our Regional Organiser, explaining the situation regarding train testing at Wembley Park in November. No further action is required on this matter, but it reaffirms the importance of remaining vigilant regarding technological developments and testing that may be used as a pretext to attack jobs, conditions and safety.

We note that the two resolutions from London Transport Regional Council have already been dealt with by the GGC when they were submitted by branches.

London Transport Regional Council and branches to be advised.

Following our test train members’ vote for industrial action, and having discussed this with our representative, we instruct our test train members to take industrial action by refusing to test trains being prepared for driverless operation. This action is to start at 00:01 on Saturday 1 December and continue until further notice.

London Transport Regional Council and branches to be advised.

This document is a guide for managers at TfL Corporate, Surface Transport & London Rail on how to assist workers whose travel to work is affected by adverse weather such as snow.

Read it below or download the original document attached.
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Guidance note for managers
Employees affected by travel disruptions caused by snow
TfL Corporate, Surface Transport & London Rail

From General Secretary Bob Crow

I write to advise branches that a formal complaint has been made to LUL on the subject of snow clearing and winter weather. The RMT Stations Safety Council has raised this as an issue with the company without resolution and has now exhausted the machinery. The Stations Safety Council has raised the following items with the ORR and the company:

• Insufficient local, practical training packages are available and have not been delivered to staff.

As I understand it, the main current issues facing drivers are:

• a clampdown on discipline and attendance
• LUL refusing to confirm that Met line T/Ops only will operate the S7 train on the Met line
• plans to deploy I/Ops on lines other than their own and/or to cross-train other lines' T/Ops or
  I/Os as occurred on the Met line
• new drivers being repeatedly moved from depot to depot
• the possible development of a pool of drivers covering a larger area than just one depot, or
  even one line

Transport union RMT, along with fellow trade unionists and MP’s, will be demonstrating outside Kings Cross station on Sunday 18th November at 11.00 to Mark the 25th anniversary of the Kings Cross fire and to highlight the continued need for a fully staffed and safe tube network.

Local MP Frank Dobson will table the following Early Day Motion in Parliament on Monday:

We note the correspondence from London Underground Ltd.

LUL’s letter confirms our suspicions that it still intends to increase automation in order to attack jobs and conditions, and we reaffirm our determination to resist this.

We further note reports that some testing of technology to facilitate driverless trains may have taken place at Wembley during the first weekend of November. We instruct the General Secretary to obtain an urgent report on this, and to place it in front of us.

From General Secretary Bob Crow

Further to Circulars NP/269/12 and NP/279/12 dated 2ND and 8TH November 2012 ,you will be aware that the new CICA scheme was voted through on Monday evening in the House of Commons, in spite of opposition by the Labour Party and a campaign by this union and others and victims groups.

The new scheme:

removes injuries in bands 1-5 (£1,000 - £2,000)
significantly reduces (by approximately half) the tariffs in bands 6-12
removes injuries caused by suicide or attempted suicide from the scheme completely.