Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
Thousands of Belgian railway workers working in sensitive jobs will soon be subject to security checks. Le Soir newspaper reported the news on Friday, citing internal documents from the French-speaking Socialist Union CGSP.
“About 5,000 people are affected,” says Pierre Lejeune, national president of CGSP Cheminots. According to Marie-Anne Burri, a spokeswoman for HR Rail, the new measure concerns 3,300 employees at the railway authority SNCB/NMBS, the company contracted by the Belgian state to operate the railway, and 4,600 at Infrabel, the manager of Belgian railway infrastructure.
Three SNCB/NMBS job profiles will be targeted: train drivers, agents of the Belgian railway security service Sécurail and employees in the monitoring and remote control rooms. At Infrabel, several other profiles were also affected, including those of telecommunications technicians.
These employees will now be subject to a “security check”, renewable every five years, conducted by the Federal Police. Employees' identities are verified against various security databases, after which they receive a positive or negative certificate. The latter means immediate dismissal and a lifetime ban from applying for jobs within the railways.