Workers' Liberty

Service control staff were barely out of one naff 'restructuring' than we faced another. This time, it is all about 'upgrading' to super new control centres.

At Earls Court control centre, management have introduced 'corrective action plans'. A member of staff gets so many 'items' and they are hauled off by a manager to 'agree' and implement a plan.

The good news is that the RMT leadership has responded to the arguments of rank-and-file activists and agreed to an all-grades ballot against casualisation and de-staffing.

It seems that many of the Control Room staff at Neasden have been working despite their safety-critical licensing having expired.

Traffic Circular 38 contained a rather odd recruitment advert. Service Controllers wanted, should have a 'bit of magic' and the ability to 'make problems disappear'!

Could this be an admission by management that mere Muggles can not operate their system? Could that be because of impractical timetables, knackered equipment and stress-packed working conditions?

Tubeworker recommends to Endemol and Channel Four a possible venue for the next series of Big Brother - the new Waterloo & City line signal cabin.

It's got cameras pointing at the staff, though no-one seems to know who's looking at the monitors. And you have to walk through the changing room to get into the cabin, meaning that people don't get to change in private.

'Tube Meltdown' screamed the newspaper headlines as this morning several lines went totally up the wall.

One upshot was that some early-turn Earls Court service control staff were held up on their way to work. Apparently, management decided that it wasn't really worth sending a taxi to get them in, presumably expecting that the night shift would just hang around until their reliefs got there.

Service control restructuring is not yet completed. Some people have done better out of it than others, and a fair few people are angry about the situation. Tubeworker always said that this was not a good deal and that RMT should not have called off its strike.

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.

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.

Following a SPAD at Harrow on the Hill reportedly due to Manual Electronic Logging in use in the signal cabin, MEL equipment was removed from Harrow and Whitechapel cabins. HMRI are apparently investigating - but as Tubeworker writes, MEL is being put back in, on test, with new modifications.

Management having given lots of people severance and displaced some ex-apprentices to the stations, there are now incidents where shifts in service operator grade can't be covered (as Tubeworker

(Melman is a comic giraffe character in the kids' film, 'Madagascar'. The character is a very nice idea, but blunders and splutters, and is not really up to the tasks that face him. Unlike Manual Electronic Logging (MEL) in LUL signal cabins, which is, erm, not like that at all.)

Managers are being "trained" to operate signalling equipment on the simulator at Griffith House, and being qualified and licensed without actually operating the equipment for real. They are then going on to operate signalling desks in control rooms. Recently, one manager took 14 minutes to take a release at Cobourg Street - any service operator who did this would almost certainly be on a DB.

The introduction of MEL (Manual Electronic Logging) to signal cabins is sputtering and stumbling its way forwards. In some cabins (especially the busier ones) using MEL is adding a significant extra work-load to the signal operator's job, as it is more time-consuming to use than paper sheets.

Service control review ... We are still waiting for news on the mapping (ie. who's going where) and the promotional positions. Why is it taking so long? Why is the union not keeping people better informed about what is happening?

Ruislip depot ballot result - Service Control grades committee - SPAD wristbands

The introduction of MEL (Manual Electronic Logging) into some of the Met and District Line signal cabins is reportedly imminent. So we might be forgiven for wondering why the MEL team (extra staff seconded to work at Harrow-on-the-Hill cabin to assist with MEL), which had been kicking its heels since May, has just been disbanded. Good question.