VIRGIN WEST COAST CLEANERS WIN 10 PER CENT PAY DEAL

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2011 :: RMTnews 5 C leaners working for the Carlisle Group on the Virgin West Coast Mainline have won a pay increase of more than ten per cent along with further improvements in benefits, allowances and working conditions. The pay victory, announced just before the cleaners were due to begin another 48 hours of strike action, will be phased in over the next ten months, but staff will be five per cent better off immediately. In the run up to the dispute RMT recruited hundreds of new members, creating strong and vibrant union organisation that delivered a rock-solid 24-hour strike and industrial action including refusal to empty on- train sewage tanks. During the dispute RMT wrote to the Office of Rail Regulation demanding action over the health consequences of the company attempting to run services with over-flowing effluent tanks. RMT parliamentary group convenor John McDonnell MP also tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons, signed by around 30 MPs, calling on the company to reverse its decision to derecognise the union on the cleaning contract and to “award its hard working staff a pay increase that will deliver dignity at work and a living wage”. The deal means that since June 2010 RMT has moved the cleaners’ rate of pay from £5.80 to £7.12 per hour by September 2013, so as a result of over three years of campaigning and building the union the union achieved a 23 per cent increase in pay. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that it was solely down to the strength, solidarity and sheer courage of the Virgin West Coast Cleaners that RMT had been able to negotiate the ten per cent pay deal. “We have moved the cleaning contractors, Carlisle, from a one per cent offer to a ten per cent settlement and in the current climate that is a fantastic achievement. “This deal sends out a message to low-paid workers everywhere that if you organise in a trade union and are prepared to put up a fight you can win. “RMT is now stepping up campaigns for a fair deal for cleaners and catering staff across the transport industry and the model campaign on the West Coast Main Line cleaners will be rolled out to other companies with the clear message that we can win,” he said. Carlisle’s owner, Impellam Group, part of the business empire of top Tory Lord Ashcroft, has increased its profits by almost 30 per cent to £16.2 million in the past year off the backs of its low- paid workforce, yet the workforce had initially been offered a real- terms pay cut. VIRGIN WEST COAST CLEANERS WIN 10 PER CENT PAY DEAL Picture by Andrew Ward