Police attack Underground workers

Submitted by AWL on 23 July, 2003 - 12:42

By Janine Booth, RMT Stations & Revenue Grades Committee

London Underground workers have been shocked by several incidents in which Police officers have abused, threatened, assaulted or persecuted our colleagues.

Last month, Station Supervisor and RMT representative Alfie Theodore was on duty in the Station Control Room at Piccadilly Circus. A drunk, off-duty copper burst in and racially abused him. When the Supervisor asked him to leave, the officer launched a vicious physical assault on him, leaving him injured and having to take several weeks off work.

This follows a year-long nightmare for Balham Station Supervisor Tunvir Ghani. When he called the Police to assist a victim of robbery in June last year, the officer who turned up abused him, then arrested him, took him away and pursued the issue through the courts. Tunvir was convicted and sacked. Determined to clear his name, and with the full support of RMT, Tunvir pursued and won an appeal, and got his job back.

Both the incidents described above involved black staff. There have been several other incidents in which Police officers have treated Tube station staff badly, some with a racist element.

This happens against a background of dissatisfaction with the British Transport Police. It is well known across Tube stations that if you call the BTP to attend an assault on a member of staff, they eventually turn up long after the assailant has gone. But if management call them to an invented allegation of picket line violence, the Police turn up in minutes.

Now, station staff are coming together through the RMT to tackle this issue. The union's Stations & Revenue Grades meet at the end of this month to hear workers' experiences and to put together a strategy to fight for justice for station staff.
Workers' Liberty Tube workers will be arguing that we should fight for:

  • justice for each and every Tube worker attacked by the Police;
  • independent investigation of all Tube staff complaints against the Police:no more Police investigating Police!;
  • the employer to give full backing to any member of staff taking action against Police injustice;
  • an end to the political use of the Police against strikers.

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