Unsafe? Down tools!

Posted in Off The Rails's blog on ,
Tweet in solidarity with platform staff

What do you do if you've had enough of abuse and assault, and if your employer doesn't seem to give a monkey's? You stop working, that's what.

When the destination boards went down at Manchester Victoria, and control were not passing on any information to platform staff about which train was going from which platform, passengers got understandably distressed. It didn't help that the platforms were overcrowded and all the lifts out of aciton.

But being distressed is one thing, threatening staff is another, and when a make passenger threatened to strangle a female member of staff, all the platform staff downed tools and refused to put themselves in the line of fire any more.

Moreover, Northern Drivers refused to move trains from the station for the length of the down-tools, complying with the local instructions that require all trains departing the station to be dispatched by platform staff by way of the Right Away indicators.

Aslef reps were on hand to remind their members of these instructions and give their members the confidence to stick to them.

That ought to make the management take notice. It's an example to us all.

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