MITIE MERSEYRAIL CLEANERS PROTEST

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2019 :: RMTnews 9 R MT held protests in Liverpool recently as part of the campaign for Justice for Mitie Merseyrail Cleaners which calls for a real living wage for this crucial group of transport workers. RMT activists and supporters made the case against poverty pay for a group of crucial staff who do some of the dirtiest jobs on our railways. Merseyrail outsourced station cleaning and maintenance a number of years ago and the work is currently undertaken by Mitie Facilities Management, part of the Mitie Group plc. Mitie Group paid nearly £49 million to its shareholders in dividends in the last five years. But it won’t pay its cleaners the Real Living Wage. Merseyrail latest profit was £16 million and just £70,000 would fund the Real Living Wage just 0.004 per cent of the profit level. A recent survey carried out by RMT of Mitie workers came back with 50 per cent of respondents saying they struggled to make ends meet. The union believes that Merseyrail should not be allowing its contractors to pay poverty wages and that these workers should be bought back in-house. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that RMT’s campaign demanding a Real Living Wage for Mitie cleaners was gaining momentum with political and public support continuing to roll in. “It is a scandal that the staff employed by outsourcing giant Mitie who clean stations for Merseyrail , doing some of the dirtiest work in the rail industry at all hours of the night and day, are struggling to make ends meet. “A company that can pay nearly £49 million to its shareholders in dividends in the last five years for doing nothing can afford a tiny fraction of that to pay its cleaners a decent wage for the work that they do. Merseyrail needs to take urgent action to facilitate payment of the Real Living Wage. “RMT welcomes the recent support of the Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, who recognises that these cleaners should be paid at least the Real Living Wage, and we now call on Merseyrail and Mitie to sort this scandal out and end poverty pay. “Mitie’s cleaners have had enough and are fighting for a Real Living Wage currently set at £9.00 an hour outside London. “To do this, they need the help of all the passengers and I urge everyone to support our members and do all they can to make these wealthy companies do the right thing now and pay its workers a Real Living Wage. RMT repeats its call for these workers to be brought back in house,” he said. million the CEO of the US outsourcing company that employs them pulls in annually. Yet in spite of the shocking pay differentials, tight-fisted ABM and TfL executives refuse to give these low paid workers staff travel rights on the TfL network. Even worse, hypocritical TfL bosses themselves get the staff travel benefit while denying it to the people who clean their trains and stations. ABM is a multinational outsourcing company based in the US. Its UK cleaning arm made a profit of £3 million in the first year of its contract with London Underground. In its most recent Annual report, the company reveals that its strategy requires it to sweat its overseas contracts to service its debt, while its CEO Scott Salmirs was paid the equivalent of £4.6 million in 2018: “To service our debt, we will require a significant amount of cash. Our ability to generate cash depends on many factors beyond our control. We also depend on the profitability of our subsidiaries to satisfy our cash needs.” ABM Annual Report, 2018. The union’s research now shows that the people responsible for this scandal are earning astronomical amounts while enjoying final salary pensions and staff travel benefits that they are denying to the people who work hard every day and night to keep the Underground clean. ABM cleaners’ work is some of the hardest and dirtiest work on the Underground yet their average salary works out at around £19,029. ABM’s cleaners struggle to get by and are denied key terms and conditions that are normal expectations for other workers employed by London Underground and TfL. For example, they don’t receive free travel on the TfL network in spite of the fact that many of these workers travel far across London at unsocial hours to work long shifts on the Tube. RMT conducted a survey open to ABM cleaners in the union’s membership and received 95 responses. 68 per cent of respondents reported that they sometimes or regularly struggle to make ends meet. The people making the decision not to give these workers free travel or proper pensions are themselves benefitting from it as highly paid TfL and London Underground employees. ABM EXECUTIVES – THE PEOPLE WHO PROFIT FROM OUTSOURCED CLEANER Total remuneration Pay as a multiple of average salary of an ABM cleaner (£19,029) Highest paid director of ABM Facility £182,000 10 Services Ltd* Scott Salmirs, CEO ABM Industries* £4,695,450 246 MITIE MERSEYRAIL CLEANERS PROTEST