The crash on April 25th in Amagasaki, Japan has caused Japan Railway to come under attack for its conduct not only during the aftermath of the crash but the corporate culture that placed efficiency before safety before it. Indeed the firm has been accused putting profits before people – where have we heard that one before?
Critics of the company said that it is obsessed with profits and adheres to a management philosophy straight out of the dark ages. Whatever errors there are in our management systems in the UK, at least we do not require drivers who make mistakes, such as overrunning platforms or even passing signals at danger to undergo what the Japanese Railway calls “day-shift education” where senior staff berate the employee and where they are made to write reports reflecting on their errors. This is nothing more than ritual humiliation and several members of staff apparently have been so demoralised they later committed suicide. I’m not surprised. Although, given our culture differences, I’d have walked, leaving a vigorous two-finger salute rather than disembowel myself.
Drivers who commit errors are not so much encouraged to learn from their mistakes – which at least is the aim of what happens in the UK – but they are left in no doubt as to the fate that will await them should they do the same again. If I thought the rail industry in the UK was archaic in its management style – let me unreservedly retract that right now. They are paragons of virtue compared to this lot:
“As one driver told the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper: “the [re-education] programme doesn’t make drivers want to avoid accidents more than they already do; it just makes them want to avoid the programme.””
Reflecting on this, makes me realise that Railtrack clearly wasn’t that bad. At least no signallers were ever sent on a re-education programme such as this nor were they ritually humiliated. The management style may have left much to be desired, but Japan Railways can clearly teach them a thing or two about prehistoric management systems.
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