Long ride to safety

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Contexto de página: Página principal > Revista 'Transporte Internacional' > Issue 12 July 2003 > Long ride to safety

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Following a safety enquiry at Tranz Rail, New Zealand, management and unions successfully united to reverse rising incident rates. But market pressures soon got in the way. Wayne Butson, General Secretary of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU), recounts the mileposts and setbacks in an ongoing journey towards safer railways

In the first five months of 2000 four rail workers were killed in New Zealand, three of them shunters and one locomotive engineer. They were all killed doing jobs they loved, because an approved safety system had failed to protect them. Safety at reasonable cost was the mainstay of New Zealand rail legislation. At reasonable cost to whom, we asked, the company or the workers?

As a result of strong public advocacy by RMTU, and with a newly elected Labour-led coalition government in place, a ministerial enquiry was convened in July 2000 to look at safety in Tranz Rail Ltd. The enquiry took several months and gave our members an opportunity to testify at public hearings about the shocking human toll of Tranz Rail's so-called safety system. Seven years after privatisation and the formation of Tranz Rail as a subsidiary of US-owned Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation, we were well attuned to the company's rapacious greed for profits over safety.
At this time Tranz Rail's safety system was classified secret - indeed the RMTU was declined access to it even when we applied under the Official Information Act. Tranz Rail's approach excluded employees and the RMTU. It was difficult for us to understand the system even when we finally got access to information about it.

However the enquiry findings delivered a number of recommendations that have been pivotal in changing Tranz Rail's approach to safety. These included the recommendation that Tranz Rail should work more closely with its employees and in consultation with their union, the RMTU, to improve safety.

Major changes in senior management within Tranz Rail coincided with the release of the enquiry report. The new managing director and myself committed the two organisations to work together to address systemic and human factor safety issues within the company. It has not been easy. Indeed this commitment has at times sorely tested both sides, and will no doubt continue to do so.

Initially we held a number of joint workshops of managers and union delegates, to identify what the structural barriers were, and how they could best be addressed. We also looked at other companies recognised for their excellent safety practices, such as in the petro-chemical industry.

As a result of these workshops, and realising that best practice health and safety would never be achieved through management-driven systems alone, we identified a number of needs. Our priorities were to secure the support of workers, to work through strategies and implementation jointly with management, and to gain recognition of the fact that the best champions of safety are union delegates.

Systems for safety

Following the workshops, a Health and Safety Executive was established comprising senior management and union representatives. It meets monthly for half a day in varying locations around New Zealand. It looks at detailed safety statistics, referred issues and ways of driving improved safety throughout the whole organization.

The existing, often management-dominated health and safety groups were broken up, and new union representatives were elected to sit on 37 health and safety action teams. Each team is sponsored, but not managed or chaired, by an allocated manager.

Any issue that local management or the H&S action team are unable to resolve is referred to the business group general manager. This manager has 30 days to respond. If the issue remains unresolved after this stage then H&S action teams can take the issue to the Health and Safety Executive.

The Health and Safety Executive is also informed of all issues that are referred to business group general managers.The idea underpinning this is that safety issues are not something that should be hidden, particularly by middle management trying to keep within their budgets, but rather it is in everyone's interests to have a transparent system where all safety issues are addressed.

All health and safety teams were given training in the new processes and in hazard identification and accident causation. All staff were encouraged to report any hazard or near hit they came across. To assist in this, near hit/hazard white boards were installed in every work site.

Combined union and management occupations councils formed to look proactively for ways to improve safety. A shunt council, locomotive engineers council, train control council, infrastructure council and motive power council were also established. These groups met monthly or bi-monthly in different locations around the country.

As a result, many safety objectives were jointly agreed including, for example, banning some practices, such as boarding or alighting a moving shunt. The safer riding practices were introduced by voluntary compliance. That is, by peer and management mentoring to bring about the changes.
Tranz Rail agreed to fund the RMTU to employ a health and safety organiser. The organiser would work with members to get them more involved in health and safety, deliver training, and ensure the agreed health and safety system was known by all, and was working.

So, what impact did all these changes make?

In the first 12 months following set-up we achieved a 40 per cent reduction in lost time injuries, a 30 per cent decrease in injury severity, and a reduction in operating incidents such as derailments.

These were huge achievements. As a union we began to feel we were heading in the right direction. We felt that the partnership we had entered into with management to improve safety was finally starting to deliver the safer working environment that our members had a right to expect. Safety had achieved a greater and more visible priority. Then what happened?

Safety sell-out

Tranz Rail, as part of its radical restructuring to address organisational issues and poor financial performance, decided to outsource various functions. Up to this point Tranz Rail Ltd had been a vertically integrated railway company. Now infrastructure maintenance and motive power were outsourced to multinational companies Transfield Services and Alstom Transport. Auckland's metro operation and 73km of rail track were sold to the Auckland regional council. Tranz Scenic was sold to Australian railway interests who now own it in partnership with Tranz Rail.

The time leading up to the outsourcing of these functions involved huge uncertainty for our members, as the companies who took over infrastructure maintenance and motive power both announced large staffing cuts. The union had safety concerns about the cuts, particularly the large reduction proposed in track maintenance workers, when we believed the track had already been under-maintained and under-capitalised for many years.

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Eyes off the ball

As a small union we struggled with the mammoth industrial workload that outsourcing created - the simultaneous negotiation of four more national collective agreements.

Tranz Rail management also struggled to deal with the workload. Their eye was taken off safety and focused on the demands of outsourcing and addressing poor financial performance. What we had so carefully put in place began to fall apart before our eyes. It was very distressing.

Injuries and operating incidents began to rise. Some of the increase we believed was due to the huge emphasis we had placed on early reporting of injuries and operating incidents. So to a certain extent it was inevitable that better reporting, and the simultaneous introduction of a "no blame" culture, would lead to an increase in recorded incidents. (No blame does not mean no responsibility, but members are still struggling to come to grips with the subtle difference.)

But this is only part of the story. There has been a lack of consistency in the delivery of education about the changes and a lack of effective safety leadership, particularly at mid-management level. Production won the battle of prioritisation over safety when Tranz Rail introduced a new system of container transfer sites and a "full trains on time" ethos.

It became more difficult to get staff released for training, and health and safety action team meetings became increasingly problematic, especially when site managers didn't prioritise such things. There was insufficient auditing of the agreed process and a lack of follow-up when trouble spots were identified. We have had to intensify our campaigning work to address the issue of the severe punishments inflicted on train crew who have been involved in passing signals at danger.

Keeping commitment alive

We are continuing to press for commitment, both among management and our membership, to education, training, and reporting of problems, and to ensure that outsource companies deliver on safety. We take every opportunity to reiterate to our members the importance of self-responsibility, and that the most important thing at work is safety.

The Health and Safety in Employment Act is about to be amended and this will see all rail workers included under it. The RMTU is delighted about this. As part of the act, fines are being introduced to penalise rail operators for safety failings. The amendments will also see a strengthening of workers' rights, with recognition of the role and importance of safety reps and guaranteed training time.

The RMTU intends to deliver training to all our safety reps throughout New Zealand on the changes to the law, and what this means for our members.
In line with another inquiry recommendation a New Railway Bill is due to enter parliament. This provides for interoperability, the licensing of locomotive engineers and a regulatory role for the Transport Minister and Director of the LTSA.

Meanwhile we are experiencing increasing numbers of operating incidents involving contractors in our fragmented industry. Private companies are currently still required to undertake the role of regulator. We have no money with which to address our problems, as the financial position worsens alongside the ever-deteriorating public profile of Tranz Rail Ltd.

We have had setbacks in realising our ideal of a 50 per cent reduction in operating incidents year on year. But our commitment to see this thing through is alive and well. The alternative is to return to the dark adversarial days of the past. We can only do it together.

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Issue 12 July 2003

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Blame culture: the enemy of safety

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