ORGANISING CLEANERS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september/october 2024 :: RMTnews 19 Your union recently took a decision to launch a serious organising campaign at Office Cleaning Services (OCS) Group contracts covering Avanti West Coast/Alstom, Great Western Railways and LNER. These outsourced workers are members of twenty RMT branches across six regional councils. Outsourcing brings its own challenges to traditional organising approaches. By making use of modern data analysis methods allows the union to overcome the fragmentation of the workforce and begin the process if uniting members against the employers’ attacks and to improve eroded terms of employment. The union needs to build the membership on these contracts to strengthen the voice of these cleaners who have been forced to accept pay increases far below what they deserve. RMT assistant general secretary Eddie Dempsey called for local leadership to build membership using evidence-backed branch interventions in the workplace. “Our message is that we want to win and the way to do it is comprehensive organisation of the workplace. To do that we need to be more sophisticated and plan how we reach every worker. “Some might choose not to join but we need to make sure everyone is approached and understands why they should be in RMT. “Regional councils that cover the three OCS Group contracts have been provided with the data about membership and members will be working from this to ensure that when the pay anniversaries come around RMT has the necessary membership density and workplace activists to bring our leverage to bear and win. “There will inevitably be a conflict between shareholder profit and decent pay for those that do the work, but the union will be fighting for workers in poorly paid and traditionally precarious employment who, nevertheless, are vital to the operation of the rail network. “Members and activists will know that there is a strong culture of RMT in the transport industry and there is now an increasing array of tools that the union can use to organise those areas now outsourced which in the past would have been under a sole employer. “Outsourcing is a scourge and the excellent RMT Cleaners’ Charter sets out an alternative vision and demands for our workers in cleaning grades,” he said. ORGANISING CLEANERS Union launches campaign to organise cleaners on Avanti West Coast, Great Western and LNER rail contracts