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RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: jan/feb 2026 :: RMTnews
16
PROTEST: RMT assistant general secretary John Leach addresses protest
outside London City Hall to demand an end to outsourcing
A new RMT report has
exposed that the top six
outsourcing facilities
management firms in rail –
Mitie, OCS, Bidvest Noonan,
Churchill, Carlisle and ABM –
are raking in profits of over ten
per cent a year.
As a result, every year, more
than £150 million is taken out
of the rail industry by
outsourcing companies who
profit from contracts for
cleaning, security, catering and
gateline services in rail.
Last year, these profits are
likely to have amounted to
around £152 million. On this
basis, since 2016, outsourcing
companies are likely to have
extracted more than £1.6
billion in profits.
Analysis of outsourcing
firms’ accounts has revealed
that they have retained these
healthy profit margins, in spite
of the cost-of-living crisis and
the rises in the National
Minimum Wage by using
contracts that pass the costs
on to the government.
The same is true of rising
National Insurance costs which
means that outsourcing firms’
profits are protected at the
expense of the taxpayer.
The outsourcing firms tend
to be owned by super-rich
financial institutions and
private equity funds who use
clever financial engineering to
extract more profits and turn
them into shareholder value.
This involves holding down
workers’ wages and passing
costs onto the taxpayer while
making dividend payments,
charging interest on
intercompany loans and using
accumulated cash to buy back
their own shares to ramp up
their share prices.
For instance, Mitie Plc paid
out £54.5 million to its
investment bank shareholders
last year as well as also
spending £104 million in the
same year on buying back its
own shares to ramp up their
value in the stock market. In
the last two years, it has
awarded its CEO a total of
£20.5 million.
OCS Group has been
OUTSOURCING–
EXPLOITING THE
RAIL SECTOR
New report exposes how outsourcing privateers sweat
money out of the industry