TUBE WORKERS PROTEST AT CITY HALL OVER BROKEN PROMISES TO CLEANERS

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: july/august 2009 :: RMTnews 7 T he latest financial results of bus and rail company Stagecoach reveal that shareholders dividends are rocketing to nearly £13 million while up to a thousand jobs on their South West Trains and East Midlands Trains franchises face the axe. The Stagecoach figures show that overall operating profits rose by 11 per cent to £227 million Interim dividends for shareholders have gone up from £9.5 million last year to £12.9 million this year with final dividends going up from £28.9 million to £30 million. Stagecoach tycoon Brian Souter has announced that he will be giving away his £1.6 million bonus to charity but, with his sister Ann Gloag, enjoys a combined fortune of £700 million to see him through the recession. Yet, Stagecoach, with the connivance of the government, is jacking up their dividend payouts while up to a thousand of their rail staff are being threatened with being thrown on the scrapheap. Jobs are being axed, ticket office opening hours are being cut and all in the name of generating the maximum profit and dividends for the company’s shareholders. SWT has already been ripping seats and toilets out to squeeze more long-suffering passengers on, and those lucky enough to get a seat are likely to be jammed five abreast in suburban trains unsuitable for longer journeys. At the same time, passengers have suffered inflation-busting fare increases every year and SWT wants to remove the guard’s responsibility for opening doors to pave the way for removing more staff. As a result of the latest shareholder bonanza, RMT has repeated its call for a moratorium on dividend payments across the transport sector while the threat of redundancy hangs over the heads of thousands of hardworking staff. Companywatch R MT tube workers took a protest to Mayor Boris Johnson over his broken promises on the London Living Wage for some tube cleaners and over the docking of pay for staff that could not get into work on the snow day in February. Boris Johnson had given a pledge that all staff working on GLA and TFL contracts will receive the London Living Wage which was recently upgraded to £7.60 an hour. However, staff working for ISS on Tube Lines are only getting £6.12 an hour as well as working in appalling conditions. RMT has pointed out that Mayor Johnson himself is paid £78 an hour and that his Chief Executive has had an 11 per cent increase taking him to £205,000 a year. Cleaners are expected to clean up syringes and other waste left behind by drug users, deal with the aftermath of suicides and run the constant risk of exposure to diseases carried by rats. They work in filthy conditions down the tube tunnels. But despite that, they typically have no access to hot and cold running water to wash themselves and share primitive, cramped and mixed changing rooms. Back in February, Johnson also said that he had “no intention of penalising anyone who failed to get to work because of the …exceptional weather”. Local managers have since reneged on that promise and staff have had their pay docked or been forced to take annual leave. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said it was a scandal that some of our tube cleaners, who clean up infected syringes, the body parts from suicides and run the constant risk of exposure to infection, are paid just over six pounds an hour – nearly £1.50 an hour less than the London Living Wage. “London Underground is conniving in this exploitation. “They have washed their hands of the cleaners appalling levels of pay and the failure to supply safe and appropriate working conditions, by saying it’s a matter for the private contractors. “That’s a disgraceful way to treat key underground staff and the Mayor should intervene to stop it now. “Boris Johnson should keep his promises on the London Living Wage and snow day pay,” Bob said. TUBE WORKERS PROTEST AT CITY HALL OVER BROKEN PROMISES TO CLEANERS STAGECOACH HANDS OUT DIVIDENDS WHILE 1,000 FACE THE SACK