Security

Increasing pressure is being put on stations to tighten up performances in security checks, putting both CSAs and supervisors under more stress and facing greater risk of action plans and disciplinaries.

London's graffiti artists and taggers have been especially busy on Bakerloo and Central line trains recently. There seems to have been an explosion both of large, colourful pieces along the sides of trains – presumably the result of artists somehow getting access to depots or sidings — and smaller tags on the inside of the trains.

LUL wants to scrap the “wand” system for security checks at Cat-A stations, a replace it with visual checks that will be inputted/audited by an app. The current system involves tagging points on a wall with a wand, data from which is then downloaded to verify the check has been completed. We hold no...

Suicide prevention situations are often very tricky - but as a recent incident at Wood Green shows, heavy-handed policing does not help. A video of the incident has gone viral on social media. A passenger had made it known that they wanted to end their life, and staff and bystanders went into action...

Since Mitie took over the TfL/LU security contract from Interserve, there’s been a spike in overbearing and disciplinarian management practises. Security workers are getting organised via RMT. The union must ensure they are supported and empowered to fight back against this culture of management...

Outsourcing firm Mitie has absorbed Interserve, which held the contract for office, depot, and sidings security on LU, meaning Interserve workers are now Mitie workers. This is a common experience for outsourced staff, being transferred from one employer to another like servants. For example, any...

A recent email from an Area Manager calls for volunteers for a made-up local scheme based on LU stuff colluding with the cops to criminalise passengers and some of the vulnerable people we find in our stations. Apparently workers can build a good relationship with the local cops. You don't have to...

We’ve previously reported on the struggles faced by outsourced security workers in depots, sidings, and office buildings, employed by Interserve, and their efforts to fight back. A number of them began getting organised through RMT, with the Piccadilly and District West branch taking a particular...

Relations between the British Transport Police and LU station staff have been somewhat strained of late. There’s a widespread feeling on the job that the BTP don’t take staff assaults seriously. This feeling was exacerbated by the news, reported in Tubeworker last month, that BTP officers conducted...

There’s been outcry across the job since it emerged yesterday that plain-clothes British Transport Police officers had been conducting a covert spying operation on station staff at Piccadilly Circus. The operation consisted of the officers posing as fare dodgers and committing acts of antisocial...