There's been a mini-scandal in the media recently about temperature levels on the Underground, after it was discovered that a Central Line train was hotter than the legal maximum for transporting cattle (for more, see here).
As well as carriages, platforms are incredibly stuffy. Some stations have had air conditioning units installed... many of them don't seem to work. Doing a two-hour SATS duty on a platform is a genuine safety issue in this weather!
We deserve to work, and our passengers deserve to travel, in bearable conditions! Asking to be treated at least as well as cattle doesn't seem like an unreasonable demand.
Maybe if the company had spent the millions its spent designing its radical new staffing model on station and rolling stock improvements like functional air-con systems, we'd be in a better position. The company says it's investing in new air-con facilities for trains, but by its own estimates, only 40% of the Tube will be covered by 2016.
At the end of 2013, the company and City Hall announced a scheme to use waste heat from the Tube to heat local homes in Islington (see here). That would also be something worth investing in and expanding, but instead, the company focuses its resources on ramming through cuts and commissioning driverless trains (not to mention the huge salaries it pays to top bosses).
The temperature levels on trains reveal the contempt the company has for passengers. It tells them "Every Journey Matters", but in reality it wants to cram them into overheated cattle carts (ideally without a driver!), rattling through stations with no staff.
