Going Underground

Confessions from the Underground

I missed Channel 4′s Confessions from the Underground the other night, and finally managed to catch up with it on YouTube (link above). I thought initially that it would be one of these fly-on-the-wall documentaries illustrating the daily life of one of the world’s busiest transport systems. but I was left feeling shocked and somewhat horrified as it turned out to be a big exercise in whistleblowing.

Platform staff tell how they have to deal with overcrowded stations, with hundreds of people crammed onto one platform. They tell of the abuse, both verbal and physical, that they receive from passengers. They tell about hating having to lie to passengers about delays when the automated station announcements proclaim “Good Service”. They highlight the fact that they are often chronically understaffed, and sometimes are under pressure from management to keep a station open despite not having the legal minimum number of people in place.

A maintenance technician has to diagnose electrical faults using his bare hands because the insulating gloves supplied are too slippery to be able to handle components properly. He receives electric shocks on such a regular basis that he doesn’t bother reporting them any more – indeed, LU confirmed in a statement that no such reports had been made in the last four years. Besides, he says, 110V isn’t a big shock anyway – he’s far more concerned about the 600V live rail that he occasionally have to work around. Track faults are highlighted by another maintenance man; faults are reported, but swept under the carpet.

A driver explains how they have two major fears. The first is the “One Under“, which is when someone commits suicide by jumping in front of the train. It’s a particularly harrowing event that leaves train drivers feeling responsible for the death, even through there’s nothing they can do about it. The second fear is catching someone in the train doors as they depart from the station. There are no guards on the trains any more, and they have to rely on “mirrors and monitors” which often do not work.

The most shocking thing for me was that in the event of a One Under, the body is often removed to another are of the station – frequently a cupboard –  in order for the network to continue running.

It beggars belief that in the 21st century, and on a network that can boast over a billion passenger journeys a year, London Underground should be in such a perilous state. One would think that if passenger journeys are on the increase, the number of staff employed should also increase; instead there have been cuts in staffing. No member of staff should ever be made to feel as if they’re completely on their own, and they should certainly never ever have to be afraid of verbal or physical attack. Poor maintenance has been responsible for deaths on other parts of the rail network – Hatfield and Grayrigg to name two – so why LU want to decrease their maintenance budget is beyond belief.

The overall impression I got from this programme was that the Underground is one big disaster waiting to happen. I’m fortunate enough not to have to use the system on a daily basis, but if I did I would be seriously worried and would probably be re-thinking how I get to work.

 

Paradise on Boris Island

Boris Johnson had a dream. His world was infested with evil red worms called Bendy-buses, which clogged up the roads and upset motorists. He yearned for the bygone days of the Routemaster, with its open platform which enabled people to hop on and fall off willy-nilly. So much was his longing that he arranged a competition, and a few years (and several million quid) later, we now have the New Bus for London.

Having rid the capital of his pet hate, he has a new dream: to build a new island in the Thames. It will provide a transport mega-hub, with four runways, rail-links from the centre of London and elsewhere, and enough capacity to permit transfers from short-haul flights from within the UK. A new Thames barrier would be provided, doubling up as a new road crossing. The cost? A mere £50bn. That’s right. Fifty Billion Pounds.

So why is this so wrong? For a start, the Thames estuary is known for being a haven for migrating birds. Although his plan apparently includes proposals to create a new nature reserve, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Aircraft engines and birds don’t tend to play very well together. Then there’s the CO2 emissions and noise that would come from an airport with four runways.

Ah, but we need to the capacity to encourage foreign investment, don’t we? Perhaps, but there is a fairly easy way of doing that without  building additional airports.  We improve transport links between the major cities, including those with existing international airports. A decent high speed rail network would all but kill demand for domestic flights, with only those from the farthest-flung UK destinations being necessary. We could improve transport links between the existing London airports to make transfers from one to the other as easy as possible. Let’s face it, London has enough of them: Gatwick, Heathrow, London City, Luton and Stanstead.

£50bn could go a long way without having to spend it on another vanity project. Remember that this is Britain – by the time we get around to building the damn thing it’ll be well over-budget, and probably well out-of-date as well.

While I’m totally against this particular island, the concept of “A New Island for Boris” is one that I’m warming to. Somewhere far away, surrounded by shark-infested waters and with no hope of ever escaping. Stick Cameron, Osborne and the rest of the crew there for eternity and I’ll be happy. On reflection, £50bn might just seem like a bargain after all.

So that was 2011

Here we are once again. It’s Hogmanay, or New Year’s Eve for those of you not of a Scottish persuasion. It doesn’t seem that long ago since the last one. Time seems to fly ever more quickly the older I become. 

My blogging has been very light, lately. I’ve had plenty to say, but recently I’ve found it really difficult to get the thoughts out onto the page and arrange them into some sensible order, without turning into a shouty person at the same time. Everyone has good days and bad days, but I’ve had more of the latter this year, and I didn’t want to turn my blog into some kind of depressive rant. 

The Post-a-day initiative failed, miserably! It was a good idea in theory, but in practice I found it very hard to do. On days when I had little to say, I felt obliged to publish something, but the last thing I wanted to do was for the blog to become one big long list of status updates. I have Twitter and Facebook for that. I thought perhaps switching to doing a post-a-week would be better, but even then, it became a chore.

While my blogging may have declined, I’ve been more active elsewhere. I’ve been a lot more active on Twitter, and this was also the year that Google+ appeared. I’m not quite sure where I’m going with that one – I post occasionally, and I’ve had a couple of really interesting discussions there too. Then there’s Facebook, too. Perhaps I should have one place where I can bring it all together. Who knows? 

So, what about 2012? No promises! Let’s just see how it goes, eh?

The death of the Community Council

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15545566

I’ve heard various reports, most recently about Western Isles, that Community Councils in Scotland are on the decline. I didn’t really give it much thought until I read today’s BBC report on the matter. Lack of interest is cited as one of the main reasons, along with a shortage of younger people willing to get involved.

I was aware of the existence of Community Councils, but I always thought they were only an informal affair, without much power and probably full of local do-gooder types (there, my prejudices are laid on the table). I wasn’t aware that they do actually have some statutory role in aspects of local decision making such as planning and licensing.

My own local Community Council was fairly active, I thought. I would hear mention of it when I was a kid, and I’d always assumed it had carried on its activities. However, a quick visit to my local authority’s website revealed that my own local council was one of the ones suspended due to lack of numbers. I was quite taken aback. Am I really surprised, though? If my local MP or MSP died, resigned or otherwise became indisposed, there would be publicity, and a subsequent by-election. I’ve seen no such publicity about my own local Community Council. I tend not to read the local papers, so perhaps I missed something there, but the first thing I would expect is a leaflet through my front door. If I wanted to become an MP, the process for doing so is fairly well documented; it’s not so obvious how to become a community councillor.

So why aren’t people getting involved? Apart from not knowing about the existence of a local organisation, there are time constraints. If you have a council which meets on a certain day at a certain time, you then find that anyone who does shift work is less able to fully participate. Is there enough flexibility in the system? Although we lead busy lives, people will find the time to engage in such activities, given the chance.

It’s a sad situation, because I feel that democracy should begin at the local level. Indeed the more say individual communities have over their own lives, the better. I read somewhere recently that we should be looking at re-instating the old parish and town councils, and I totally agree.

Will we see Community Councils die within 10 years? No, I don’t believe so, but they need a higher profile. Get a blog, tell us who you are and what you have done, are doing and will do. Get a Facebook page and a Twitter account; if you want the younger generation to take an interest, what better way to engage them?

 

 

 

 

 

On wearing poppies

It was 11th November, perhaps three years ago. It was a normal working day, and word was passed around that our store would be holding a two-minute silence to mark Armistice Day. I remember that I had a particularly hectic schedule that morning and feeling slightly irritated, but hey, it was only two minutes out of the day in which to show respect for the dead, wasn’t it?

My colleague had been given the task of going around the shop ensuring that everyone had poppies. It was almost eleven o’clock when she finally got around to asking me where mine was. “I don’t wear one”, I said. She was furious, muttering something along the lines of “it’s disrespectful” and “it’s wrong”, but it was too late for her to argue. The two minutes came and went, and when I went back into the office the atmosphere was tense. (It was always bloody tense, let’s be honest, but on this occasion it was more so than usual)

When I asked what the problem was, she let rip, demanding to know why I wouldn’t wear a poppy. I felt absolutely no need to explain myself and indicated that my reasons were none of her business. After all, it’s a personal matter to me, and we were in a work situation. Given that many of the staff in the shop had spouses who were serving forces members, I may well have opened a can of worms at the same time. So I kept my mouth shut, and fumed for the rest of my shift.

Why was I angry? Because this whole thing is so enforced. I remember being asked at school: “Where’s your poppy?” At school the excuse of “lost it” didn’t wash, because inevitably there were spares. There were spares that day at work, too, but no manager, supervisor or work colleague is going to bully me into wearing something I don’t believe in wearing. Had I known about the white poppy at the time I may have worn one of those, I but I will not be forced to wear a red one.

There are many symbols that people choose to wear to support various campaigns. We have the pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness and the white ribbon for raising awareness of violence against women. Perhaps the most relevant to me, is the red ribbon symbol worn for World Aids Day. I’ve tried to wear it at work before and I’ve been told by various bosses over the years to remove it. What’s the difference? I would never dream of forcing colleagues to wear a red ribbon – it’s a matter of choice – yet at the same time, I’m expected to wear the poppy. Anyone who chooses not to is vilified and accused of being disrespectful.

For the record, I have a great deal of respect for the people who lost their lives in the two great wars, many of whom didn’t have the choice. I also feel a great sadness that so many of our young people continue to fall in ongoing conflicts. I just don’t need to wear a symbol to show it.

The Beecroft Report: The Bad Bosses’ Charter

So we’ve had the attacks on the unemployed, the sick and the disabled. Those who work in the public sector are about to have their pensions raided by the changes in how inflation is calculated. Workers have already been told that they will not only have to pay up front for an unfair dismissal claim, but they will have to have been employed for two years before they can do so. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, a report commissioned by our dear PM, David Cameron, suggests further erosion of worker’s rights.

The draft Beecroft report, apparently leaked to the Telegraph, suggests certain changes to employment law that would allow businesses to improve efficiency and encourage growth. It talks about the “terrible impact” of the unfair dismissal process and how “lengthy and complex” it is. I would agree about the terrible impact of it; the impact on the employee who has to take their employer to a tribunal in the first place. Let’s face it, the employee has at this point already lost his or her job, so the employer already has the upper hand. There’s the impact on the self-esteem of the worker involved, and the possibility of a spell of unemployment and the pitfalls that entails.

It then goes on about those employees,

secure in the knowledge that their employer will be reluctant to dismiss them, work at a level well below their true capacity: they coast along.

Sure, we’ve all probably worked with someone who didn’t appear to pull their weight or work hard as everyone else, but in most places that I’ve worked there has been a standard disciplinary procedure. Having worked in a few call centres over the years, targets were very much the order of the day and those who fell below standard would soon be shown the door unless significant improvements were made. In one case a girl on my team was “at risk”, but a little bit of extra coaching helped her improve her confidence and completely turned the situation around. At the very least an effort should be made to find out why the employee falls short of the mark.  Perhaps there are problems at home. Could it be that a colleague or line manager is bullying them? Maybe it’s because they are really good at their job, but that life’s little brown-nosers get the recognition before anyone else.

Beecroft goes on to say:

To resolve the problem of unfair dismissal process one could simply say that if discrimination was not involved an employer could dismiss an employee at any time without giving a reason and paying the employee only for his or her contracted notice period. Unfair dismissal is a UK concept and not an EU one, so there are no legal barriers to doing this.

No legal ones maybe, but what about moral barriers? He adds:

However, this would probably neither be fair to employees nor politically acceptable.

No, it probably wouldn’t be fair to employees, and I think the unions would definitely have something to say about it. So, probably not politically acceptable either. Nice try, though. He then goes on to suggest that instead of just sacking someone for no reason and with nothing but a week’s notice, the employee would be given as much notice and pay as if they were being made redundant. So someone who had been with their employer for quite a while would probably come out of it with a few grand, but it’s not much better. He calls this scheme Compensated No Fault Dismissal and says that it would

give certainty to the employer that an employee can be dismissed within a relatively short period at a known cost and with no fear of a referral to a tribunal provided no discrimination is involved.

No Fault? If there is no fault there is no need to dismiss anyone, is there?

Beecroft then goes on to talk about Capability Based Dismissal, which employers could follow instead, but this is an option they can already follow. To quote from the page that I’ve just linked to:

If an employee is not doing their job in the way the employer requires the employer should investigate whether that is due to any lack of application on the part of the employee  (in which case disciplinary proceedings could be contemplated) or whether it is due to the employee’s lack of ability in one or more of the tasks required.

1. How their work does not measure up,
2. The standards expected of the employee
3. A timescale to improve at the end of which the employer will assess the employee
4. Any support, training or advice available to the employee

So they still have to provide a reason for sacking someone, they have to give an employee time to measure up, and they have to provide support or advice. In other words they have to show to a certain extent that they care. Of course, it’s bad enough that they have to pay this useless underperforming layabout without having to spend additional money.

The final paragraph in this (incomplete) document says:

The downside of this proposal is that some people would be dismissed simply because their employer did not like them. While this is sad I believe it is a price worth paying for all the benefits that would result from the change.

That says it all. I’ve been in charge of people whom I didn’t like. Not everyone will get on, but as long as someone gets on with the job and does it to the required standard, personal feelings shouldn’t ever come into it. You like your friends, you like your family (generally), and while it does help if you like your workmates, does it really matter as long as the work gets done?

The sad fact is that none of these changes really need to be implemented. If an employer wants to get rid of you, they will do so, and within the existing legislation. Particularly in the service industries, being rude to a customer is written into the contract as Gross Misconduct, and that means summary dismissal; it’s often your word against the customer, and we all know the customer is always right, don’t we? If your jobs is target-based and you fail to achieve those targets, disciplinary action can and will be taken and dismissal can result fairly swiftly. An employer simply has to make sure that his/her employees are in no doubt what the boundaries are. They can get you on the sick route; nitpicking at the little things, increasing your workload or reducing the available time to complete it (or both). Eventually the employee is signed off with stress and as the absence continues, the disciplinary wheels go into motion.

It is for these reasons that Unfair Dismissal legislation exists. Perhaps it might not prevent someone being dismissed in the first place, but it at least allows people to stand up to unscrupulous employers and send a message telling them that their behaviour is inexcusable.

If an employer treats their staff as human beings rather than human resources, they should have nothing to fear in the first place.

 

BMW X5

BMW X5 (image courtesy of Wikimedia)

Today we went for a drive round Loch Rannoch. For those unfamiliar with the road in question, it is a rather twisty-turny affair, single-track and only wide enough for two cars to pass in a few places. Despite its single-track nature, I don’t think it’s officially so, therefore there are no proper passing places. Because of this, many drivers don’t seem to bother either slowing down or pulling over slightly when faced with an oncoming vehicle.

A large proportion of the vehicles we passed were of the 4×4 variety, or SUV, if you prefer. Of those, I’d say two thirds were BMW X5s. I don’t know what changes occur in the brains of the people that drive these beastly machines, but getting behind the wheel of one seems to induce an overwhelming sense of superiority. Indeed it would seem that other cars become invisible.

When driving in this part of the world it is necessary to chill out a little bit. You’re never doing to get anywhere in a hurry, and manners are the order of the day. Perhaps the Bavarian company should include a little section on manners in their handbooks.