Monday, October 26, 2009

Tube rant man resigns

Ian Morbin the London Underground station assistant who was filmed shouting at a passenger at Holborn Tube, & threatening to "sling him under a train" has resigned. He had been suspended with full pay while the incident was being investigated but has now chosen to leave for personal reasons.


London Underground said "He has informed us he would like to apologise for the incident involving a passenger at Holborn Tube station on Thursday 15 October and hopes that his actions have not detracted from the professional job done by hundreds of London Underground staff every day.

"As we made clear from the moment this incident was brought to our attention this kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable and does not represent the way our staff go about their jobs helping millions of customers every day
."

A number of people wondered if the unions would come to his support with industrial action if he was dismissed as a result. However, Morbin, was not a member of the RMT. Interestingly they were upset that the media & internet reaction to this had harmful consequences for a lot of frontline staff who are members of the RMT. They were worried of a "trial by Twitter".

They said: "There is an established procedure through which passengers can complain about staff. Passengers have the right to have complaints considered, and staff accused of wrongdoing have the right to a fair investigation and hearing which takes into account the full circumstances and context of any alleged incident. However, many of the comments posted on the internet have demanded the CSA's dismissal without any reference to his right to fair hearing; some have threatened violence towards him; others have made generalised attacks on Tube staff as a whole; a few have even attacked RMT, despite the CSA concerned not even being a member!"

Luckily the customer assistant had realised his behaviour was unacceptable. Everyone's actions are under scrutiny though and although people (both staff & commuters) may think they're invisible when travelling on the Tube - they're not. Someone will be always be aware of what's going on and it means that we should all be responsible for our behaviour, no matter how riled we get by our commute or other commuters.

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