TSSA News Release

Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon and NR chief exective Iain Coucher were challenged today to take` action over "bully boy" personnel chief, human resources director Peter Bennett.

TSSA leader Gerry Doherty announced he was calling on the Minister to suspend the £200,000 a year Network Rail personnel director with immediate effect.

And he called on the Network Rail chief executive to "finally come clean" on the number of "hush hush" confidentiality agreements that Bennett has signed off on over the past three years-including payments of between £450,000 and £850,000 to senior female staff whom he has personally sexually and racialliy discriminated against.

Bennett has been twice named and shamed in the House of Commons in the past eight weeks for presiding over "a culture of fear and bullying" by Labour backbencher Jim Devine.

Mr Doherty said today:"We want action and we want it today. Peter Bennett must be suspended to allow a full independent inquiry to go ahead into how he has abused his position to pay off at least 155 staff in the past three years.

"We are talking about millions of pounds of taxpayers mney being paid out to hide flagrant breaches of employment law which have been drawn up to protect our members in the workplace."

"Peter Bennett was identified as presiding over this culture in the House of Commons eight weeks ago and yet he is still in post. We want to know why Mr Hoon has not acted against him by now to protect the 35,000 employees at NR.

"And I have been stonewalled for the past year by Mr Coucher and NR chairman Iain McAllister over all my attempts to find out how much taxpayers money has been used to cover up the disgraceful behaviour of Peter Bennett.

"Now I want them to tell me how much has been spent on these hush hush deals to buy the silence of discriminated against employees and how they can possibly justify Bennet signing them off at the average rate of one a week for the past three years."