CLEANING UP THE RAILWAYS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2021 :: RMTnews 12 “Our campaign is centred around the idea that you are core workers and you are important,” RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said as he launched the RMT’s Cleaning Up the Railways report. He said that the cleanliness of stations and rolling stock, along with health and safety more widely, had been shown to be “vital” during the pandemic. “They are a core service,” he added. “They’re just as core as collecting the revenue, they’re just as core as driving the trains, they’re just as core as maintaining the track and serving the meals on board. And largely these sectors are still in house.” The report highlights that outsourcing of railway cleaning - with more than 30 contractors employed across Britain’s national network - “has created a low paid cleaning workforce” and “often leads to a thinning out of cleaners as companies strive to cut costs and create profits in a labour-intensive industry”. It argues that in spite of the corporate spin, “many companies are not conducting more frequent deep cleans of trains or stations”. A survey conducted by the union to feed into the report revealed that a third of cleaners are still worried that they are not getting the right PPE. Almost half the cleaners working on the network don’t think they have enough staff to do their jobs properly, and a third said that the number of cleaners had fallen in the last three years. One in five reported that the number had fallen even since the start of the pandemic. With the Rail Industry Recovery Group reviewing the status of the cleaning workforce, the report calls for TOCs to “insource their cleaners, as ScotRail have already done”. It also calls for Network Rail to “bring its entire station and estates cleaning service in- house as the contract ends in 2022”. Delegates at RMT’s national industrial organising conference of transport cleaning workers unanimously voted to support the report and “urged the union to use it as a basis for campaigning politically and industrially for the aim of in-sourcing all cleaning work and for our basic demands of justice for cleaners, improved safety, pay, conditions and pensions along with dignity & respect for CLEANING UP THE RAILWAYS RMT’s organising conference for transport cleaning workers launched new report on the importance of these core workers