CLEANERS ON AVANTI WEST COAST STRIKE

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2022 :: RMTnews 10 RMT members in cleaning grades on Avanti West Coast services took 24 hours of strike action last month in the fight over low wages and lack of sick pay. Atalian Servest runs the contract and is refusing the union's reasonable demands for a decent wage rise and sick pay for hard working cleaners. RMT pickets were held outside the Alstom train care depot at Liverpool Edge Hill and in London at Wembley and Euston and through the Midlands to Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Oxley up to Crewe, Liverpool and Edgehill - Manchester and Longsight - to Preston, Carlisle, Glasgow Central and Polmadie. Currently cleaners on the contract receive as little as £9.90 an hour and no company sick pay. This is despite the fact that Atalian Servest has paid over £15 million in dividends to its French owners in 2020/21. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said that cleaners were rightly hailed as heroes and key workers during the Covid pandemic. "Yet our members are languishing on poverty wages while the company they work for rakes in the revenues for shareholders. "RMT is calling time on all cleaning contractors who exploit their staff, and we are stepping up to the plate to take firm action in defence of these key railway workers,” he said. AVANTI WEST COAST CLEANERS ON STRIKE Picket lines organised across the country against low pay PICKET: RMT Atalian Servest cleaners strike picket line outside the Alstom train care depot at Manchester Longsight- the message was clear from picket lines from London (Wembley and Euston) through the Midlands to Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Oxley up to Crewe, Liverpool and Edgehill - Manchester and Longsight - to Preston, Carlisle, Glasgow Central and Polmadie. Crewe