Normally when there’s a dispute I have to scrabble around online trying to get information but while not many hours of work have been lost so far over the sacking of Alex McGuigan hundreds of trees have been sacrificed as we’ve been deluged with memos from both sides and here’s what I’ve managed to glean from them.

Let’s start with basics, random D&A testing happens all the time, AMcG wasn’t singled out because they thought he was drunk, it was just a regular thing, normally when someone fails a test they are sacked and nothing is ever heard.  LU’s drugs and alcohol policy states that a maximum of seven units can be consumed in the 24 hours before booking on for duty but none at all in the eight hours before.  AMcG has maintained that he’d stayed within LU’s limits, he was due to book on at 12:20, drank less than six units the previous evening and stopped well before the eight hour deadline making Nigel Holness’s claim that he’d admitted he’d been drinking before starting work deliberately misleading.

While it is true that certain types of diabetes can cause an excess of acetone which can give a false positive reading on old style semi-conductor breathalyzers the new fuel cell types are supposed to be immune from such problems and LU claims “the Lion Alcometer (breathalyser) we use in London Underground does not give false positive results“.  Having been the subject in a random D&A test last year I think I can identify the breathalyser used as the Lion Alcolmeter ® 400 – you’d think they could at least get the spelling right.  On Lion’s website the blurb tells us “the reading is very unlikely to be affected by anything in the subject’s breath other than alcohol” which isn’t quite as emphatic as LU’s claim.

http://www.lionlaboratories.com/product-details/?product_id=5

RMT claims that the test was carried out by “an unsupervised trainee”; in reply LU states that while trainees may be present they are always accompanied by an experienced and qualified testing supervisor who will conduct any secondary tests.  It has been stated that AMcG failed two tests and LU confirms that If the first test fails then a second one will be automatically be taken.  If the test was carried out by an unsupervised trainee then clearly LU breached its own procedures and inexperience could have led to a mistake

The obvious problem with LU admitting that there might be the slightest possibility of the Lion 400 giving an inaccurate reading or that the staff might not be sufficiently trained to take the tests is that it puts an element of doubt on all the previous test that have led to staff being dismissed and where the unions didn’t make a fuss.  RMT ask why the urine sample wasn’t tested when the breathalyser result was questioned and why a medical review wasn’t held.  LU says that the urine sample doesn’t reflect the level of alcohol in the blood stream at the time of the test and that medical reviews are held after a positive drugs test, not a failed alcohol test.

A very noticeable point is that RMT has offered to call off strike action if management agree to reinstate AMcG should his dismissal be deemed unfair by the Employment Tribunal but this was rejected and the obvious question is if LU are so sure of their case why would they not agree to this?  The implication is that there’s something they’re not telling us and sadly they have form, in the past evidence has emerged that proved that management weren’t telling the whole story.  At one tribunal a manager was described as “an unreliable witness”, as close as you can get in legal terms to saying someone is telling porkies.

Of course it could be that AMcG is the one not telling the truth but the strength of support from the other TOps, both RMT and ASLEF, in the limited strike at Morden depot last month suggests that his colleagues believe him.  Depots are small places, there’s plenty of gossip and if anyone there thought that AMcG was a boozer then when he failed the test there would have been a general shrugging of shoulders.  The decision to ballot all Lines rather than just the Northern came after Victoria and Piccadilly Line staff at Finsbury Park branch backed a motion to spread the dispute so rather than a strike imposed from the union’s leadership this seems to be coming from the members.


In the end it comes down to who to believe, who to trust.  While LU’s statements are accepted by the media, the public and the politicians sadly they have little credibility with their employees.  The past has taught us that management will stick to their story no matter if it’s true or not, they simply refuse to compromise even when faced with inevitable defeat.  If it does come to strike action then even though ASLEF are not involved and won’t be balloted I will not be crossing the picket line