Railway unions demand 'urgent solutions' for safety of personnel

Railway unions demand 'urgent solutions' for safety of personnel
Brussels' south train station. Credit: Belga

The socialist and Christian trade unions in the railway sector are protesting on Monday at noon in the Brussels South railway station.

Their demands focus on solutions for the protection of the Securail staff, who have faced several cases of aggression lately.

According to the trade unions, many of the cases of aggression took place in Brussels in recent weeks.

In just 10 days, 11 policemen of Securail had a work-related accident that was related to aggression during the exercise of their profession.

“That’s 10 percent of the Brussels staff,” the unions said.

The unions say they’ve requested an emergency meeting of the Committee for Prevention and Protection at Work.

They also condemn the fact that the agents have been given additional tasks, such as checking reservations as part of the new coastal trains.

While reservations aren’t needed for normal trains, they are for the coastal trains in order to help control crowding and avoid packed stations that make it impossible to socially distance during the coronavirus pandemic.

A recent study examined whether it would make sense to implement a reservation system for all trains, and deemed it infeasible, in part because of the extra burden it would place on employees who’d need to check tickets as well as seat numbers.

The Brussels Times


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