Hundreds of London Underground workers exposed to asbestos for nearly 20 years

Hundreds of London Underground workers could have been exposed to asbestos for almost 20 years without protection required under safety regulations, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Under 2002 rules on controlling asbestos and other hazardous materials, employers are required to take a series of precautions, including ensuring exposed workers are given individually fitted face masks to prevent inhalation of toxic dust.

Emails and minutes of meetings reveal that London Underground managers admitted that face-fitted masks were not issued to staff until as late as 2020.

The documents suggest Transport for London (TfL), the public body responsible for London Underground, is at risk of more expensive legal claims after already paying out more than £7m in asbestos-related compensation and legal fees.

The documents were disclosed as part of an employment tribunal hearing brought by a former London Underground cleaner, Micky Steeds, who successfully claimed he was unfairly dismissed after raising concerns about exposure to asbestos and other toxic dust.

In one set of minutes, a manager said he had no recollection or record of face-fitted masks being issued in 2018 to the team responsible for cleaning dust from vents, which included asbestos-sheathed cables. He said such masks were not introduced to London Underground’s civils teams, responsible for all the tube buildings, until late 2020.

In December 2020, another manager who was head of lifts and escalators said: “A lot of people aren’t face-fitted,” adding: “Staff shouldn’t have worked without face fit, but it has happened.”

He blamed the failure on a lack of training.

In 2019, an email from a third manager said allowing Steeds to carry on working without a face-fitted mask was oversight that would be rectified in future. In a 2023 email, a fourth manager admitted that asbestos dust fibre sampling, which is also required under the law, was not conducted.

TfL has recorded more than 20,000 asbestos-containing materials across its network, according to data released under freedom of information to Confront Power – an investigative newsletter on industrial harms.

TfL insists it has controls in place to manage the risk of asbestos exposure to its staff and the public. In an email in December 2022, a senior engineer responsible for hazardous materials said test results showed levels were “below the relevant workplace exposure limits for both respirable and inhalable dust”. But he said dust being cleaned contained “traces of asbestos fibre occasionally”.

But Steeds and one of his former colleagues point out that tests were not conducted while the asbestos was being cleaned and disturbed.

And minutes of meetings between staff and a manager also revealed issues with damaged asbestos, which is more dangerous. One experienced cleaner said he encountered asbestos on cables 90% of the time and sometimes: “Broken chunks of asbestos or cable shearing.”

Asked what he did when he found asbestos, he said: “We would just carry on and use common sense … don’t bash cables and do what you can.”

Catriona Ratcliffe, a solicitor from the personal injury team at LeighDay, said: “Where the asbestos materials are damaged or in poor condition, the risk of exposure is higher because there is more opportunity for the fibres to be released into the atmosphere.”

Earlier this year Ratcliffe secured a six-figure settlement from TfL for a former inspector who was diagnosed with sarcomatoid mesothelioma 27 years after supervising the removal of asbestos from the Northern Line.

She said the documents in Steeds’ case could result in more injury claims. She added: “If someone is exposed to asbestos over many years, even at low levels, that is going to put that person at risk. And if the employer had knowledge of the risk of exposure, that could result in a legal claim if they have not taken the precautions required under regulations.

“Under the control of asbestos regulations [if exposure to asbestos is unavoidable] employers should be giving workers full protection including face-fitted respiratory masks to reduce that risk as far as possible.”

Steeds, who was not fitted with a proper mask for 15 months, said: “Over the years, TfL must have put the health of hundreds of workers at risk by failing in their legal duty to provide fitted masks. It makes me so angry that even when I told them about it, they ignored my concerns and tried to cover it up. The incompetent managers who allowed this to happen now have serious questions to answer.”

Rob Donnan, a former LU cleaner who is appealing against an employment tribunal’s rejection of his claim for unfair dismissal, said he worked without a fitted mask for three years. He estimated that up to 80 cleaners in the vents department alone were not fitted with masks between 2002 and 2020 and that a further 300 staff in the escalator department were similarly unprotected.

A TfL spokesperson said: “We have strict controls in place, in line with the government’s control of asbestos regulations, which ensure customers and staff are not at risk from exposure to asbestos when travelling or working on the tube network. Our specialist teams monitor and manage locations where asbestos has been found to ensure the safety of everyone travelling or working on the network.”