RMT and GTR clash over help for disabled passengers
UNION claims that disabled passengers needing assistance must ‘call a man in a van via India’ have been dismissed by Govia Thameslink Railway.
On May 25, the RMT union issued a statement saying that GTR mobile assistance teams would be based on three lines. The statement said: “If a passenger needs help boarding at Littlehaven on the Horsham via Three Bridges route, they press the help point at the station and it gets answered at a call centre in India, which takes down the information and then contacts the Operations Centre assistance controller, who then eventually calls up the mobile person to attend the station and provide help.”
RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said: “This latest crazy scheme is doomed to failure and is a sticking plaster solution to a massive problem GTR have bought on themselves in the drive for profit. It treats passengers requiring assistance with total contempt and marks them down as second- class citizens in contravention of disability discrimination law.
“We don’t need phones ringing in call centres, and complicated and doomed plans to raise a man in a van that puts all the emphasis on the passengers, and which will still leave them stranded. We need a guard on our trains.”
A GTR spokesman told RAIL on May 29: “We continue to have processes in place at all our stations to ensure passengers travelling with us are able to obtain assistance boarding, whether they have booked it in advance or not.
“Very few people request assistance at these partially unstaffed stations, but anyone who arrives without prior warning will be helped within 20 minutes by a member of staff from a nearby station.
“Passengers can speak to our dedicated assisted support team at our control centre in Sussex by using a help point, freephone number or text message.
“We have always advised passengers to arrive 20 minutes before departure to ensure we have everything in place to assist them onto our trains. This hasn’t changed.”
The stations concerned are Earlswood, Salfords, Ifield, Faygate and Littlehaven on the Horsham via Three Bridges route; and Riddlesdown, Upper Warlingham, Woldingham, Lingfield and Dormans on the East Grinstead route.
The row erupted the day after RMT criticised GTR over its ‘Pitstop’ document sent to staff, which gave advice on how to deal with passengers with reduced mobility. The document said: “DO NOT attempt to place PRM (Person of Reduced Mobility) on train if there is a possibility of delaying the service.”
Regarding Pitstop, a GTR spokesman told RAIL: “GTR continues to offer assistance to all passengers who need help with their journeys, and this policy remains unchanged. We accept that the wording of an internal leaflet to station staff about helping passengers in the few minutes before a train is due to depart could have been better expressed, and it has already been revised.
“We have introduced several improvements for passengers with reduced mobility, such as platform humps between London Bridge and St Pancras, giving level access to the train, and these stations are staffed throughout the day.”
Pressure group Association of British Commuters (ABC) held a protest at London Bridge on May 21, over the treatment of passengers with mobility issues.
ABC co-founder Emily Yates raised concerns over a ‘call ahead policy’, which she said had resulted in passengers being refused the chance to board pre-booked trains for which they had arrived in plenty of time.