METRO CLEANERS WIN MPS BACKING

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2012 :: RMTnews 6 T yne and Wear Metro cleaners fighting for travel facilities to and from work have received MPs’ backing in their battle with transport chiefs. Around 70 cleaners working on the Churchill contract on the minimum wage of £6.08p an hour lobbied a meeting of the Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority (ITA) in Newcastle hours after nine MPs signed parliamentary motion 2646. Gateshead MP Ian Mearns, backed by Blythe Valley MP Ronnie Campbell and North Tyneside MP Mary Glindon, tabled the motion calling for free travel passes to be issued to this group of workers. The motion calls on the ITA to give the same travel rights to cleaners enjoyed by other staff on the rail network. RMT regional organiser Craig Johnston said that it was a wrong that needed to be put right. “It would not cost Nexus a penny to give these workers free travel to and from work,” he said. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the MPs that had signed the EDM should be congratulated for adding their voices to the campaign to end this injustice. “Tyne and Wear ITA has a moral responsibility to ensure that all workers who help keep the Metro running are treated fairly. “It is ludicrous that the low- paid staff are expected to pay to gain access to their own workplace, not least because it wouldn’t cost a penny to put right. “Churchill has no excuses either, and for a company that increased its pre-tax profit by 81 per cent between 2009 and 2010 to expect its minimum- wage employees to pay these fares is simply immoral,” he said. Northern TUC secretary Kevin Rowan also backed the cleaners “100 per cent”. “The Northern TUC, which represents workers across the region, believes it is scandalous that a group of low-paid workers who play a crucial role should have to pay to travel to work on it,” he said. R MT has secured a pay victory for cleaners working on the Eurostar contract, bringing the union a step closer to its objective of getting all staff onto a minimum rate of £8 per hour by the end of the year. A series of incremental increases under the package will mean the minimum rate of pay rise from £7.40 an hour to £8.00 per hour by November - an increase of around eight per cent on the basic rate. Victory came following a hard fought recruitment and organising campaign among staff led by RMT’s EPS branch and after a ballot of members delivered a resounding mandate for industrial action in pursuit of pay justice. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that the achievement of RMT’s interim target of a £8 per hour minimum on OCS Eurostar is a major breakthrough in the fight for justice for cleaners and has come about through the sheer determination and guts of our members and the hard work of the RMT EPS Branch. “They are a credit to the trade union movement. “This result comes just weeks after we secured a 10 per cent increase for cleaners on the West Coast route and shows that fighting, industrial trade unionism can beat the defeatists and win major pay victories even in these days of ConDem austerity,” he said. Bob said that the union was not stopping here. “Our cleaners across the transport sector deserve far better and we will keep building the organisation and strength on the shop floor to win every single one of them justice on pay and conditions,” he said. METRO CLEANERS WIN MPS BACKING EARLY DAY MOTION 2646 CHURCHILL CLEANERS AND THE TYNE AND WEAR METRO That this House commends the work undertaken by the cleaners employed by Churchill Contract Services on the Tyne and Wear Metro; notes they are paid minimum wage rates for the vital work they do; believes that their efforts should be rewarded in line with other staff employed on the Metro system; is therefore dismayed that unlike other workers on the Metro they do not receive free travel passes; and calls on the Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority to respond positively to the request made by the cleaners' trade union, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, for free travel passes to be issued to this group of workers. Ian Mearns MP EUROSTAR CLEANERS PAY VICTORY