LONDON Underground bosses were accused yesterday of “riding roughshod” over safety regulations in an attempt to undermine industrial action by transport workers.

Members of rail union RMT are operating an overtime ban, as well as taking sporadic strike action, over management plans to impose all-night working without agreement.

Talks are taking place between London Underground bosses and RMT through the independent Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas).

But they were halted yesterday after RMT was called to an emergency meeting with the Office of Rail and Road, the independent safety regulator for England’s rail and highways network.

RMT said the meeting was called after “a series of serious breaches of safety protocols over the past week.”

The breaches, which RMT reported to the regulator, have not been specified.

However the union said managers at Upminster and Stonebridge Park depots brought trains into service “in a blatant and dangerous contravention of the agreed regulations with serious implications for passenger and staff safety.”

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “RMT has received a number of reports from local reps of the most flagrant breaches of safety protocols on London Underground over the weekend which are directly related to a management drive to keep services running in light of the overtime ban, regardless of the impact on passenger and staff safety.”

He said the talks through Acas had been halted so that senior union negotiators could meet the safety regulator.
The union is compiling a dossier of similar safety breaches.