FIGHTING FOR CLEANERS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2022 :: RMTnews 14 “Some of the strongest fighters we have in our membership are in cleaning contracts, and they don’t get the recognition they deserve,” RMT senior assistant general secretary Eddie Dempsey said in his address to the union’s national industrial organising conference of transport cleaning workers. “It’s great to see so much of this conference in dispute fighting to achieve better terms and conditions.” Meeting amid strikes of Atalien Servest cleaners on the nearby Avanti West Coast route, and with striking Churchills cleaners in attendance too, delegates heard rousing calls to extend existing disputes across cleaning contracts. “Wherever there’s a Churchills and a Mitie and an Atalien Servest, we’re going to haunt them out of the industry,” Eddie Dempsey said. “We have a number of companies who circle the railway operators like vultures”. Freedom of Information requests have highlighted crucial government priorities for railway cleaning, which RMT believes are the key to exercising leverage in disputes with employers: cab cleaning, waste removal and toilet tanks. Calling for “co-ordinated strike action to interrupt those key pressure points”, Eddie added: “One of the biggest weapons the employers have got is disunity”. In the current Churchill’s and Atalien Servest disputes, delegates raised concerns over management tactics at certain stations, including managers instructing workers to not engage with visiting union reps. Alex Jordan, St Pancras said: “The problem at London Bridge is that we have a management team that is very aggressive against the union”. Delegates unanimously resolved that the union should “negotiate with all outsourced companies to simplify the payslips provided to staff”. Bella Fashola, Hastings and Tonbridge said: “There have been many incidents of payment shortages as these are not always easy to spot, and the company may be getting away with underpaying their workforce. Due to the large diversity and ethnicity of the work force the pay slips need to be easier to understand. This will help alleviate the problem with wage shortfalls”. A motion calling for quarterly national cleaners’ assemblies held online - open to all cleaner members - was also carried at the conference. These would be convened by the conference’s liaison committee. The same motion made the case for a national cleaners’ e-newsletter to FIGHTING FOR CLEANERS RMT’s organising conference for cleaners meet in Blackpool to discuss pay campaign