PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

FIGHTING FOR CLEANERS At TUC conference last month RMT’s delegation reported to delegates that RMT members employed as railway cleaners on the East Coast Trains contract were taking strike action against their employer ISS Cleaning Services in their fight for a living wage. This month Labour leader Ed Miliband told delegates at his party’s conference that a Labour government will “put jobs in the public sector ahead of pay rises”. Meanwhile RMT members working for another cleaning contractor Carlisle Cleaning Services on Trans Pennine Express services took a third day of strike action against poverty pay and poor working conditions. ‘Red Ed’ also promised: “Yes, there would be cuts if we were in government but if you make the pace of those cuts slower, if you take less money out of the economy now it would be better for the economy, better for growth”. That is growth that is fed through to line the pockets of skinflint private contractors, not into the wages of their low-paid workers. Low-paid workers employed by sub- contractors to London Underground, Network Rail and train operators as Cleaners, Caterers and Security staff, are rail workers. Before our railways were privatised in the mid-90s these jobs were carried out by British Rail staff in so-called ‘conciliation grades’. Since privatisation a deliberate process of outsourcing has meant that these jobs are now carried out by workers with extremely precarious contracts, with companies that hide their ‘minimum wage, maximum profit’ business model behind a smart website. Last year 300 cleaners employed by Carlisle on the Virgin West Coast Mainline contract won a 10 per cent pay increase along with improvements in benefits by taking strike action. In February cleaners on three contracts run by OCS and Initial voted for coordinated strike action at Channel tunnel locations. OCS cleaners working on the Eurostar contract also secured a minimum rate of £8 per hour after a long fight. Meanwhile Initial utilised an ‘in-house’ agency to organise strike-breaking using Bulgarian and Romanian workers – registered as self-employed with a bogus limited company status to avoid basic UK employment rights and to get round pathetic agency worker regulations. In May RMT members employed as cleaners by Churchill’s Cleaning Services on Tyne and Wear Metro also took strike action after a 100 per cent Yes vote in a dispute over pay and conditions and victimisation. RMT has set out a strategy to coordinate union campaigns for a living wage among cleaners working for railway sub-contractors. Two lessons can be drawn from these experiences. Firstly, as an industrial union RMT believes that the strong should help the weak. This means we must develop a strategy where members employed by LUL, Network Rail and train operators can assist their brothers and sisters working for skinflint sub- contractors to win union recognition, decent pay and conditions at work. The second lesson is that the only way to ensure we stamp out abusive practices and low pay is to renationalise the lot of them and win national rates of pay conditions. Our union achieved its long-held policy of rail nationalisation in 1948 when the post-war Labour government brought railways, canals, docks and road freight under state ownership and central planning to rebuild a Britain devastated by six years of war. If Ed Miliband wants to ‘rebuild Britain’, he should stop appeasing private rail companies with Labour’s current policy of ‘devolving’ transport to local government and renationalise our railways. Low paid workers and highly taxed commuters would thank him for it. Alex Gordon RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2012 :: RMTnews 23 President’s column “We will now pursue a full settlement that recognises the disgraceful treatment of this group of essential rail staff who found themselves caught in the middle of this corporate collapse. “Jarvis boss and former Tory Minister Steve Norris should be hanging his head in shame as he continues to live the high life while those workers his company dumped on the stones have been left with a long legal fight for justice. “This campaign, which is an object lesson in all that is wrong with rail privatisation and the behaviour of big business, will continue,” he said. WORKERS Arriva. Marcus Farr said: “I am incredibly relieved that the employment tribunal has confirmed what I had felt all along, that I was being purposefully targeted by controllers who appeared to have a set campaign against me for no other reason than the fact that I wore a vest with the words RMT on it and they sought to limit the influence of my union”. Len Graves added: “The whole issue has been a great ordeal which caused me to become ill with stress and high blood pressure. “I tried to challenge the charges brought against me at each stage of the process but Arriva refused to act reasonably or properly investigate my points. “I can only hope that this decision puts an end to their unreasonable and unlawful behaviour,” he said. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that Arriva had no problem in tolerating bigotry and fascist messages but was not able to tolerate the three letters ‘RMT’. “This decision should send a clear message to employers that we will not tolerate our members being singled out because of their trade union membership,” he said.