Labour Research October 2018

Health & Safety Matters

Talks demanded over
 safety breaches 


The RMT rail union has demanded urgent talks with South Western Railway after the safety regulator, the Office of Road and Rail (ORR), confirmed what the union described as “serious and potentially lethal safety breaches” during earlier strike action. 


On the eve of the latest round of industrial action in its long-running rail safety dispute to retain guards on trains, the union pointed to an ORR letter responding to a catalogue of incidents raised by the union. 


The union explained: “Behind the jargon it means that there have been a total of 18 identified incidents during strike days where signals could have been passed at danger or passengers dumped out on the tracks and the live rail as doors were opened on the wrong side or short of the platform.” 


https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-demands-urgent-talks-in-swr-guards-dispute