At Tottenham Court Road, staff working to cover the all-night opening of the Tube on New Year's Eve were not exactly rewarded with appreciation from their managers.
Small things like food for night staff - especially necessary are there aren't that many places to get your lunch at 3am - consisted of a few cake bars and packets of crisps, and CSAs weren't even told about them!
And then there were bigger issues. Management hadn't ordered enough radios for the extra staff, so CSAs were sent without radios onto platforms with violent customers and told that if they got attacked, they could just use the autophone! Some staff did overtime to help out, but they only got breaks in their first shift, and were working for seven hours without even a fifteen minute breather. A DSM was on the station the whole time.
The fact that we were 'busy' is no excuse for this. The amount of corporate money, the amount of hype this generates for Ken Livingstone, the number of years we have been doing this should mean that we can do a bit better than compromising staff safety and showing them utter contempt
