page_title: Crossrail
section_title: Health, safety, and industrial relations
hierarchical_section_title: Crossrail / Construction / Health, safety, and industrial relations
caption_attribution_description: English: The railhead used to load soil onto trains for removal from the Crossrail portal at Royal Oak Station. The structure supporting the far end of the conveyor belt (approximately in the middle of the picture) suffered a partial collapse two days before this picture was taken and is leaning to the left. http://www.cnplus.co.uk/technical/crossrail/gantry-collapse-at-westbourne-park-crossrail-site/8636508.article
context_page_description: Crossrail is a 117-kilometre new railway line under development in the United Kingdom. Crossing London from west to east, at each end of its central core the line will divide into two branches: in the west to Reading and Heathrow Central; in the east to Abbey Wood and to Shenfield. In May 2015, a section of one of the eastern branches, between Liverpool Street and Shenfield, was transferred to TfL Rail; this precursor service also took control of Heathrow Connect in May 2018 and the Paddington to Reading line in December 2019.
  The project was approved in 2007, and construction began in 2009 on the central section and connections to existing lines that will become part of the route. A main feature is 13 miles of twin tunnels completed in May 2015 running from Paddington to Stratford and Canary Wharf.
  New nine-carriage Class 345 trains will run at frequencies in the central section of up to 24 trains per hour in each direction. This will provide some relief for London Underground lines such as the Central, the District, the Jubilee line extension and the Heathrow branch of the Piccadilly line.
context_section_description: In 2012, Crossrail faced accusations of blacklisting. It was revealed that an industrial relations manager, Ron Barron, employed by Bechtel, had routinely cross-checked job applicants against the Consulting Association database. An employment tribunal in 2010 heard that Barron introduced the use of the blacklist at his former employer, the construction firm Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (CB&I), and referred to it more than 900 times in 2007 alone. He was found to have unlawfully refused employment to a Philip Willis. Aggravated damages were awarded because Barron had added information about Willis to the blacklist.
  In May 2012, a BFK manager challenged their subcontractor, Electrical Installations Services Ltd. (EIS), saying that one of their electricians was a trade union activist. Some days later, Pat Swift, the HR manager for BFK and a regular user of the Consulting Association, again challenged EIS. EIS refused to dismiss their worker and lost the contract. Flash pickets were held at the Crossrail site and also at the sites of the BFK partners. The Scottish Affairs Select Committee called on the UK Business Secretary, Vince Cable, to set up a government investigation into blacklisting at Crossrail. The electrician was reinstated. Further allegations of blacklisting against Crossrail were made in Parliament in September 2017.
  In September 2012, a gantry supporting a spoil hopper, used to load rail wagons with excavated waste at a construction site near Westbourne Park Underground station, collapsed. It tipped sideways, causing the adjacent Network Rail line to be closed.
  On 7 March 2014, Rene Tkacik, a Slovakian construction worker, was killed by a piece of falling concrete while working in a tunnel. In April 2014, The Observer reported details of a leaked internal report, compiled for the Crossrail contractors by an independent safety consultancy. The report was alleged to have pointed to poor industrial relations arising from safety concerns, and that workers were "too scared to report injuries for fear of being sacked".
  Three construction workers died from suspected heart attacks over six months in 2019, but Crossrail announced that, following extensive testing, the air quality at Bond Street station was within acceptable limits.
caption: The collapsed gantry (29 September 2012)
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