40899 Staff working ‘excessive’ consecutive shifts

March 2010 in London Underground

Fatigue Rostering Not Specified

A reporter is concerned about staff from recruitment agency, Morson International,
working a large number of consecutive shifts.  The reporter is aware of some staff
working up to and over 20 consecutive shifts before receiving a 24 hour rest period.

Staff are carrying out safety critical work and the reporter is concerned that an
accident may happen on-site due to someone being fatigued. In accordance with
the Working Time Directive (2003) staff are entitled to 24 hours uninterrupted rest
each week or 48 hours each fortnight. The reporter believes that staff are being
rostered to work these 'excessive' shifts and therefore the rosters will show this.
Morson International staff carry out work on both Network Rail and LUL
infrastructure.

For Morson International:
Could Morson International investigate the above to ensure that the number of shifts being worked by staff complies with the Working Time Directive (2003)?

For Network Rail and LUL:
The reporter would like both companies carry out an audit on Morson International,
could this be done?

Response from LUL

LUL employ Morson as a protection supplier and as part of the contract they have a duty to ensure that their company "Hours of Work" policy is adhered to.
Investigations have identified this monitoring of individual hours/shifts was not
followed.

Morson have since implemented a number of checks to ensure compliance with LUL QUENSH and NR standards such as; timesheets, weekly assignment sheets, a
Morson internal audit programme which will focus on the Working Time Policy (a
copy of which has been posted on the companies Intranet).

Ad-hoc checks will be undertaken by LUL management to ensure compliance with
the requirements of QUENSH and NR standards, and also to check against the
recommendations made by Morson in response to the CIRAS report.

Response from Morson International

Morson would like to thank CIRAS and the reporter for bringing this issue to our
attention and confirm that allegations of this nature are taken very seriously and are always investigated as thoroughly as possible.

I am pleased to report that in general, the timesheets scrutinised confirmed that the Morson policy setting out the Working Time Directive have been observed.

The investigation did highlight a small number of cases where the hours claimed or the number of shifts recorded did exceed the requirements within the Network Rail department. It was also highlighted that within our organisation, a certain individual who was managing the NR department had been unprofessional. As a result of this investigation, we have changed management personnel; all the sponsored NR operatives have signed the 'Morson Hours of Work Policy'. A tool box talk has been issued (ref. 1:20) to the operatives (and signed for) that in one section reminded the NR operatives that they could only work 13 consecutive shifts (prior to this being signed off/sanctioned by senior management).

In addition, the following remedial actions have been undertaken or are in progress:

• Morson's Hours of Work Policy updated to include the requirements of
  QUENSH sec 20.1.2 and NR standards;
• a copy of the Working Time Policy posted on our company Intranet and
  issued to ALL sponsored operatives;
• implemented a weekly assignment sheet to capture the shift patterns planned;
• this sheet will also record a weekly summary of hours worked which includes
  shift patterns, hours worked and travel time;
• exceedance reports will be generated and reviewed/discussed on a periodic
  basis;
• shift managers will be informed of trends in excessive working so that action can be taken where necessary; and
• Morson internal audit programme will give particular focus to compliance with the working time policy.