Workers' Liberty

Thankfully, strong union representation has reined in some of the worst abuses of the SIS / mystery snooper survey.

Last month, there was water ingress at Paddington and the Fire Control Panel did not work. So had there been a fire, the system would not necessarily have kicked in to detect and suppress it.

The new Circle line - confusing for passengers, more work for station staff, forcing passengers to change at Edgware Road (up and down stairs, not easy for people who are mobility impaired, with pushchairs and luggage). The critical position of Edgware Road means that problems there impact heavily on the whole of the sub-surface lines.

It seems that both ASLEF and RMT are heading for dispute at Hammersmith depot, so we could see a rare but welcome show of unity.

Edgware Road management want to create three new Station Supervisor jobs. Usually, new jobs would be good news. But in this case, it may not be.

When management at King's Cross came up with a new roster, it was put to the staff, who found a few problems with it.

In LUL's latest effort to drive its own customers away, company management called Cubic to the Pentonville Road side of King's Cross station today to disable the ticket-issuing facility on the Queue Busting Machine (QBM).

Readers will recall that LUL management got themselves in a right fluster about seven Kings Cross SAMFs who walked out of the ticket office for 40 minutes in protest at the SRT being used to cover a rostered duty.

LUL is pursuing its disciplinary action against the 'Kings Cross 7', SAMFs who quite rightly walked out of the ticket office in protest against the deployment of an SRT Supervisor to cover a duty, in

Kings Cross management wanted to bring in a new roster for CSAs, but staff objected because of various issues including the lack of decent rest periods.

Happily - or perhaps luckily - for LUL, Wood Lane station opened last Sunday without much of a hitch. This is indeed good fortune on the company's part, as the station is woefully understaffed.

Word reaches Tubeworker that the King's Cross staff who walked out to prevent abuse of the SRT are to face disciplinary action. So it's not a disciplinary offence for management to break the agreements that they themselves signed, but it is a crime to defend those agreements?!

Yesterday morning, ticket office staff at Kings Cross walked out when management once again broke their own rules by using a member of the Special Requirements Team (SRT) to cover a duty.

LUL intends to open the new Wood Lane station next month, but seems to have overlooked staffing it properly.

... but not so much thanks to you.

Management decided to reward King's Cross staff for dealing so professionally with the chaos on booze ban party night. Anyone would think management were embarrassed by their own inadequate preparation.

The £100 'Thanks To You' vouchers were most welcome - until staff discovered that some of their workmates had only got a tenner.

The proverbial well and truly hit the fan last night when the booze ban party turned nasty.

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.