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RMT and TSSA held a joint protest last month in Newcastle recently over plans by East Coast railways to axe and export 180 customer call centre jobs. East Coast, in public hands and supported by millions of pounds of taxpayer subsidy, following the collapse of franchises run by GNER and National Express, has given preferred-bidder status for customer-relations functions to Intelenet Global Services, which has operations in Plymouth and Mumbai, India and to ATOS Origin, which operates in Wolverhampton. Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah also revealed that three companies - The Listening Company, Teleperformance and Journey Call - had bid for the work not only on the basis of keeping it in the UK but also keeping it on Tyneside. RMT has called the decision a “bitter blow to the economy and communities of the northeast” which, if allowed by the government to stand, showed an “astonishing” lack of commitment to protecting jobs in the region. The campaign to defend members’ jobs at Baron House has included Parliamentary questions, and RMT Parliamentary group member Ian Mearns MP put down Early Day Motion 1585. Further public leafleting took place at Newcastle central station. In an adjournment debate Ian Mearns said it was a scandal that a state-owned company was exporting jobs abroad. “It is the latest cut to the East Coast service, after axing many buffet cars, to make the franchise more attractive to potential bidders when it is re- privatised in 2013,” he said. The RMT parliamentary group co-ordinated the sending of joint letters from local MPs to Elaine Holt, chair of East Coast and to the Transport Secretary Philip Hammond MP asking for urgent meetings. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that it was bad enough that the government wanted to re-privatise the East Coast Mainline when it has already collapsed twice in private hands, but it was allowing jobs to be exported. “These are core functions that should be done in-house, and this is another example of the failure of privatisation and a market-mad contract-culture that sees only profit and loss and never the damage it does to services and the lives of real people,” he said. Publicly run East Coast trains plans to export jobs from Baron House in Newcastle to India RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2011 :: RMTnews 7 FIGHTING OUTSOURCING OF RAIL CALL CENTRE JOBS Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah