Management have informed RMT that Transec will be carrying out 'covert testing exercises' on stations. Transec will leave a bag unattended on a station, and then observe how station staff deal with it. The exercise will initially take place at "a selection of designated Category A stations", and its aim is to check that unattended bags will be identified and dealt with during hourly security checks or other duties.

RMT has several concerns about this. We can see no reason why the current system is not good enough. Hourly checks are carried out, called in to the control room by radio, recorded on a form, then phoned through to a reporting centre which gives the station a reference number. In addition, Transec can visit stations whenever they like and observe staff, and frequently report to management if they are dissatisfied with what they observe.

RMT wants to see improved security on our stations - these are, after all, our members' workplaces - and suggests to LUL that the way to achieve this is to increase station staffing levels.

Although management assure us that it is "not the intention" that the exercise would lead to disciplinary action against staff, they would not guarantee this.

Obviously, LUL has the right to check that staff are doing our jobs. However, RMT believes that they should be able to do so without resorting to methods based on this sort of trickery and entrapment. We already have 'traps' trying to catch out ticket office staff, and a new system of 'competence management' centred around managers spying on staff at work, so we are seeing a worrying increase in this sort of monitoring.

In fact, though, this exercise is not being carried out by decision of LUL management, but is being imposed by Transec under the Secretary of State's legal powers. So it is not even an issue that we are entitiled to negotiate on.