RAIL CLEANERS STRIKE OVER POVERTY PAY

7 SOLID: RMT Picket line outside TPE headquarters in Whitworth St, Manchester, in the Carlisle cleaners’ dispute - members from Manchester, South Warrington and Scarborough branches in attendance. RMT members working as cleaners on four major rail cleaning contracts took 48-hour strike action in early November in bitter disputes over poverty pay and poor working conditions. Strike action took place on two ISS contracts, one on London Midland operating out of the Bletchley and Northampton depots and on the East Coast mainline as well as on a Carlisle Cleaning contract on the Transpennine Express and Churchill’s cleaning contract on Tyne and Wear Metro. Cleaner members also took action short of a strike by refusing to agree to any shift movements or overtime for the same period. Each one of the four separate disputes had the same issue at its core – greedy private contractors who seek to exploit their workforce and offer poverty pay while creaming off fat profits for the company shareholders. As well as low pay grievances included no pension provision, no travel expenses and other pressing issues. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that they were all long-running disputes where the train operators and the Metro authorities had sought to wash their hands of the issue and had refused to take any responsibility for the gross and brutal exploitation of cleaners that is taking place on their watch. “RMT is committed to a national fight to both expose the reality of the profiteering on our transport services that bullies and exploits the cleaners and also to securing living wages that keep pace with the true cost of living. “All of these individual companies know that RMT members are determined to push on with the fight for pay and workplace justice and that they have shown rock-solid solidarity on previous strike days. “The train operators and Metro authorities who give a green light to exploitation by these parasites should be using their clout to force them back to the negotiating table,” he said. RAIL CLEANERS STRIKE AGAINST POVERTY PAY Cleaners on four major rail cleaning contracts take 48-hour strike action in four separate disputes over pay and conditions UNITED: Workers on the Churchill, ISS and Carlisle contracts protest in Newcastle ISS East Coast Kings Cross picket line