London Underground users should know about toxic dust risk, whistleblower says

Micky Steeds won an unfair dismissal case after being sacked for raising concerns about inadequate protection and disposal of hazardous waste. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Micky Steeds won an unfair dismissal case after being sacked for raising concerns about inadequate protection and disposal of hazardous waste. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian London Underground users should know about toxic dust risk, whistleblower says 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. View image in fullscreen Micky Steeds, centre, with two of his colleagues after their shifts as cleaners for London Underground. Composite: supplied 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 to disturb it,” he told the tribunal. Steeds said he had also been alarmed that the hazardous waste he was vacuuming up was not safely disposed of. The tribunal heard that in March 2023 he had told one of his managers: “We’re fucking cowboys here, we’re dumping hazardous waste in general waste bags. I have looked at the information and we are supposed to be double bagging and disposing this as special waste, but it’s being put in a mixed commercial general skip.” In May, a judge-led tribunal concluded that this, and several other complaints by Steeds, was whistleblowing, amounting to protected disclosures under the Employment Rights Act 1996. His beliefs were “genuine and reasonable”, the panel found. “Everyone who gets on those trains needs to know about it. People are being put in danger down there,” Steeds said. His complaints were rejected by London Underground managers,