Safety fears over use of agency workers

Union leaders have accused Transport Secretary Grant Shapps of being “hell bent on endangering railway safety” over threats that agency workers could be used during industrial disputes.

Shapps warned on June

16 that unless the national strikes could be averted, the Government would “look at a range of options to stop the unions hurting the general public”.

He said this would include “repealing the ban on transferable staff filling in for striking workers”.

Several newspapers appeared to have been briefed over the weekend of June 18-19 that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had already signed off on the plans, and that the legal change was likely to take effect “within weeks”.

TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes hit back with his own warning that hiring agency staff to perform the safety-critical roles of his members would “endanger public safety”.

“Grant Shapps needs to set the record straight,” he said.

“If he plans to bring in agency workers to break a strike, then we are dealing with a Government hell bent on endangering railway safety.

“Make no mistake, there are very real safety implications in this daft plan from Shapps. He must think again and tell the bean counters at the Treasury to come up with solutions to this dispute, instead of charting a course which endangers public safety.”