Former tube network cleaner says tribunal vindicated his health concerns, including about asbestos, that could affect public
A London Underground worker who was unfairly sacked after whistleblowing about his concerns over exposure to asbestos and other toxic dust has said he wants all tube passengers to know about the potential hazards his case has revealed.
Micky Steeds, a former professional boxer from Aveley in Essex, started working for London Underground in 2018 cleaning up decades of dust from vents, lift shafts and inverts – confined channels underneath station platforms for cabling.
It was a filthy job that left him and his colleagues looking like chimney sweeps. He said the dust was sometimes so thick he could not see his hands. On one shift at Tottenham Court Road, Steeds’ cleaning gang disturbed so much dust it set off the station’s fire alarms.
When Steeds discovered the dust could contain dangerous levels of asbestos and other substances including chromium, arsenic, silicates and iron oxide, he began raising concerns, his employment tribunal heard.
The tribunal heard that for the first 15 months he was not fitted with a proper protective mask. Sometimes he had to use paper masks, which became blackened with dust after use.
He was given training on how to deal with asbestos, but only after he had been cleaning asbestos-sheathed cables with stiff vacuum brushes for 19 months. “We had been smashing it up for nearly two years [before] we did a course on how not...
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