Stopwork threat wins railway staff extra security

Union pressure has resulted in a promise of tighter security measures from the railway company. Photo / APN

Security will be increased on Auckland passenger trains after an agreement reached yesterday under threat of disruption to rail services.

The deal between Veolia Transport and the Rail and Maritime Transport Union averted a stopwork meeting of more than 300 employees that would have halted all trains between 1pm and 6pm yesterday.

It follows eight attacks on Veolia staff in the past year, including the robbery of a female train manager at the Baldwin Ave station in Mt Albert on Tuesday night.

The company has agreed to measures to improve security, including extending the coverage of Maori wardens on evening services and improving communications between locomotive drivers and train managers in the passenger carriages.

Veolia managing director Graham Sibery said the wardens would be asked to start an hour earlier each night, at 7pm, to ensure no gaps in security cover after ticket collectors finish work for the night.

Union organiser Todd Valster said this week's robbery victim was in sole charge of several passenger carriages, and could not communicate with the train driver.

He was satisfied the company had responded positively to seven union proposals, which would be worked on over the next two months and discussed by his members at a round of smaller and less disruptive stopwork meetings.

Auckland Regional Transport Authority spokeswoman Sharon Hunter said the attack at Baldwin Ave occurred in a well-lit area where it was captured by security cameras. The images were now in police hands.

Mr Sibery was pleased the police had charged offenders in relation to two earlier attacks this year on Veolia staff.