Network Rail chairman must claw back bonuses over health and safety
7 September 2010
Unite, Britain's biggest union, has called on Network Rail's
chairman, Rick Haythornthwaite to claw back part of the bonuses
paid to directors following claims that the company has been
under-reporting accidents amongst workers for at least two
years.
Seven directors earned £2.36 million in bonuses last year. A
Unite investigation claims that Network Rail had been
under-reporting minor accidents amongst workers. Network Rail's
safety record is taken into consideration when the remuneration
committee awards bonuses. According to Network Rail's 2009/10
annual report " safety is one of the key discretionary items for
assessment for the (remuneration) committee when it comes to
consideration of payments under the incentive plan."
Backing Unite's claims, industry regulator, the Office for Rail
Regulation (ORR) has described Network Rail's reporting of Riddor
(Reporting of injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences
regulations) incidents as "obscure and wrong."
Network Rail had also put in place management league tables
where managers would have points deducted for Riddor incidents.
Unite believes the league tables acted as an incentive for managers
to under-report accidents. Network Rail has now agreed to review
the use of the league tables but is refusing to re-open the issue
of bonuses paid to directors.
Unite's national officer Bob Rixham said: "It's outrageous that
senior directors can walk away with huge bonuses when Network Rail
wrongly boosted its safety record. Network Rail's chairman must
ensure that part of the bonuses paid to directors are recouped.
"Unite believes that Network Rail's remuneration committee was
not informed that the ORR alerted the operator of the
under-reporting of accidents before they awarded huge bonus
payments.
"Behind the statistics are real people who have been injured at
work, it's scandalous that Network Rail has been underplaying these
incidents. The directors should be held to account because these
practices go all the way to the top.”
The ORR has confirmed that there had been a pattern of reporting
accidents within Network Rail that were simply not credible, with
the ratio of major to minor accidents at Network Rail being 1:1.12
compared with the industry template of 1:30.
The ORR had gone further by confirming that Network Rail had
been promoting an obscure interpretation of the Riddor rules i.e.
if three days after an accident a worker could perform "light
duties" then they deemed the accident as non-reportable."
Riddor states all injuries to workers from an accident connected
with work that result in them being "unable to do their full range
of normal duties for more than three days" must be reported.
ENDS
Contact: Ciaran Naidoo on 07768 931 315
Notes to editors: http://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/guidance.htm
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