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RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: march 2017 :: RMTnews
10
The culture of privatisation and
sub-contracting has wreaked
havoc in the rail industry, not
least for the people who work in
it.
Across the rail network,
where once there was central
collective bargaining for
standard pay and conditions for
all infrastructure workers, there
are now multiple contractors
and agencies that seek to get as
much as possible for as little in
return as possible and avoid any
dealings with RMT.
The break-up of full-time
unionised employment for
infrastructure workers was a
deliberate act calculated to push
wages and conditions down and
profits up. For infrastructure
workers the fragmentation has
resulted in vastly differing and
often poor pay and conditions
with little, if any, security of
employment.
Many agency and sub-
contract workers find themselves
in the worst of all worlds,
engaged by agencies and sub-
contractors that ‘outsource’ their
pay and conditions to an
accountancy firm, making them
nominally self-employed,
denying them the employment
rights they should have and
unable to establish who their
employer is.
If the union to set the
negotiating agenda and improve
pay, terms and conditions,
safety and welfare, any response
must be across all sub-contract
companies and agencies on the
network, and that is the purpose
of this charter.
RMT's strength is that it is an
industrial union uniting workers
in all grades and across all
employers, on every worksite, in
every depot, regardless of
employment status, licenses or
competencies.
It is common for
infrastructure workers to be on
five days’, 48 hours’, 24 hours’
or even zero notice of
termination of employment, and
even these conditions are often
ignored, with employees laid off
for weeks at a time or
permanently with no notice. A
similar practice occurs where
agency workers book on as
instructed only to be sent home
a few hours later with no pay.
Infrastructure workers that
have contributed to their
A BETTER DEAL FOR
INFRASTRUCTURE WORKERS
RMT has
produced a
charter to get a
better deal for
agency and
sub-contracted
workers