RMT press release, issued today

LONDON UNDERGROUND’S biggest union has urged the company to withdraw an “astonishing and potentially highly dangerous” instruction which will require drivers to ask passengers to push carriage doors closed in tunnels.

RMT is seeking urgent discussions with LUL over an ‘Operation Standards Notice’ which will also require drivers to move trains through tunnels even if they are not certain that carriage doors are closed.

The notice instructs drivers who ‘lose’ a pilot light which indicates that doors are closed between stations to use the intercom to ask passengers to close any open doors themselves and to move the train without the visual check of all doors currently required.

“This is an astonishing instruction which shows that LUL is prepared to risk serious injury and even lives to prevent service delays,” RMT general secretary said today.

“Current procedure requires a driver who loses the pilot light to walk through a train to ensure that all doors are closed before moving it to the next station.

“Now, just in time for the Christmas party season, they will be expected to ask passengers to put themselves at risk by attempting to push closed any doors that may be open.

“We have told LUL that we cannot possibly accept our members or the traveling public being put at risk in this way and we have asked them to withdraw the OSN pending talks with our safety reps.

“We have also reminded our members of their legal rights should they feel that they are being placed in danger, and that if any of our members is disciplined for invoking them they will have the full legal and industrial backing of the union,” Bob Crow said.