Workers' Liberty

If you have travelled through Kings Cross of late, you will have noticed that staff are wearing orange HiVis all day (and if you work there, you will obviously know this!).

As well as the impending Silverlink transfer, there's another transfer in the offing - King's Cross Thameslink station is coming over to LUL on 9th December.

The Circle and Hammersmith & City lines and the District line's Wimbledon branch have come to a halt this evening as drivers refuse to go along with management's wish to operate trains that may be fatally unsafe.

Management want to introduce a joint 9-week roster for Supervisors at Farringdon and Barbican station.

Their 'carrot' is that Barbican will thus be upgraded and its rostered Supervisors get a bit of a pay rise. But no-one should accept this bribe, and should instead recognise the danger of this proposal. It's the thick end of a very very thick wedge. If management get this in, then next it'll be more 2-station rosters, then 3-station rosters, then more.

Down at Kings Cross, platform 2 is crumbling beneath the feet.

It seems that to avoid raising the nosing stones, and thus save some dosh, Metronet decided to use 8mm tiles, less than half the usual thickness.

With a person on the track near Paddington, a driver was told by the Line Controller to remain at Royal Oak. The driver then got another call on the Connect system - which shows an 8-digit code rather than a caller ID - telling him to reform and giving authority to proceed, which he did.

Barking sidings are so dark as to be unsafe. The measure for lighting levels is such that over 30 is OK, between 20 and 30 requires a risk assessment, less than 20 and the location should close until the problem is rectified. The level at Barking sidings? 4.

We all know that cleaning standards are not great on the Underground (not because of the cleaners themselves, but because of cowboy contractors and management's general disregard for safety standards). But few of us would have considered that we might risk facial paralysis just by touching some kit.

Monday evening, the District Line was suspended for half an hour, H&C and Circle also suspended, and delays continued well into the evening.

The reason? Loss of train radio from Earl's Court. The reason for that? The Connect project had installed a changeover switch on the desk during the night, but not got round to telling anyone who actually works in the Control Room. Unsurprisingly, the switch was accidentally operated.

On 20th July in the evening peak, parts of the Underground lost their phone systems. At Paddington, the Station Supervisors, realising they could not contact the Line Controller, Police, Network Control, etc, evacuated and closed the station. Quite right too.

It's OK, everyone. Calm down. King's Cross is a 'low-risk' station. We know this because London Underground Ltd says so.

MEL (manual electronic logging) at Whitechapel cabin has been withdrawn permanently. This is thanks in large part to a lot of hard work by the local health and safety rep - and a good example of what difference an effective H&S rep can make.

Management think they have a procedure (OSN48) that allows trains to run safely without working radio.

We disagree. But would it be too much to expect them to stick to their own procedure?!

A few months back, dozens of Edgware Road train ops refused to drive their trains when the radios failed. Quite right too.

Management's response? A disciplinary letter! Looking out for the safety of thousands of passengers (and yourself) is obviously very very naughty.