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RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2018 :: RMTnews 8 The union has called for all rail contracts affected by the collapse of the outsourcing and construction company Carillion to be taken in-house immediately. Only Carillion workers on what the government defines as its 450 public sector contracts will be guaranteed their wages. However the future of the other 90 per cent of outsourced contracts, agency work and the supply chain is unclear and liquidators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) havs confirmed that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) will not apply to them. A PwC letter, said: “In this situation staff will not automatically transfer under TUPE because a winding up order has been made against each of the Carillion companies.” This means that staff can be transferred to different private companies on inferior rates of pay and poorer conditions. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that clearly anyone working in the rail sector was providing a service to the public and called on the government to confirm that members would continue to be paid with their functions taken directly in house. "The government has known for months that Carillion were in trouble and they should have had plans well in hand for just this situation. "All of the Carillion rail works on the various contracts can be brought in-house easily and that is what we expect to happen with jobs and services protected. “If there is limitless amounts of cash to bail out rail franchises like Southern and East Coast there should be no penny pinching when it comes to workers caught in the crossfire of the Carillion collapse,” he said. Carillion has also been trying to “wriggle out” of its pension obligations for a decade while paying out tens of millions in dividends for shareholders and “handsome pay packets” for bosses. Reports that Interserve, another massive outsourcing outfit where RMT has members, is also now coming under scrutiny. "We warned that the chaotic collapse of Carillion could spark off a domino effect amongst these high risk businesses and we stand by that. "The forensic investigation we have been promised into Carillion needs to be extended in scope to include the whole murky world of outsourcing, franchising and privatisation. "It also needs to include those politicians who have promoted and encouraged the pillaging of our public services by these get-rich-quick merchants despite repeated warnings from the trade unions. "Anyone with their dabs on this growing scandal must be sent the clear message that there's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide,” he said. Carillion’s liquidation last month has left hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of unfinished public contracts but it is even unlikely that there is enough assets to meet even the cost of winding up the company, according to Sarah Albon, the chief executive of the Insolvency Service. The group collapsed with £29 million in the bank, a £1.3 billion debt pile and a pension deficit of close to £1 billion. Ms Albon told MPs that Carillion was made up of 326 companies, 199 of them in the UK, with 169 directors. She said that the Insolvency Service’s investigations normally took 21 END OUTSOURCING RMT calls for end to outsourcing, franchising and privatisation following chaotic collapse of Carillion