ORGANISING AT LUMO

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2026 :: RMTnews 4 RMT is organising workers at Lumo, an open-access operator owned by FirstGroup which has started operations on the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Stirling. Lumo already operates passenger trains on the East Coast Main Line between London King’s Cross, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Queen Street and is headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne. RMT recently met with the union’s Parliamentary group about open access rail services under Great British Railways (GBR) which included RMT regional organiser Gray Jackson who is the lead officer dealing with open access companies. This meeting was chaired by RMT group member Rachael Maskell MP who explained that whilst RMT strongly welcomed government’s plans to bring the railways into public ownership, an absolute priority must be to protect the jobs of open access members. She said that GBR will take over responsibility for track access decisions from the regulatory body the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), and the government has confirmed that it will honour existing open access contracts, but it has not said what it will do after that. RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey raised concerns about the open access operating and its employment model. “The reality is that the primary purpose of open access operators is to make profits and try to keep employment costs as low as possible at the expense of hard-working staff, by offering worse conditions and less generous pension schemes than comparable areas elsewhere on the railway,” he said. Rachael Maskell has tabled an amendment to the Railways Bill, which is the legislation currently going through Parliament that will establish GBR, which would require the government to protect all open access jobs should an operator exit the market for any reason and enable these staff to transfer into employment in GBR. A number of MPs signed the amendment. Due to Parliamentary conventions, while the amendment will not be law at this stage it provided an opportunity to raise this important issue in Parliament. During the debate RMT group members secured a commitment from the Minister that he would meet with them to discuss the issues in the amendments including the status of open access staff. Rachael Maskell MP ORGANISING AT LUMO RECRUITING: Members of Preston No.1 and Newcastle Rail & Catering branches and RMT NEC member Conor Price out recruiting on the first public Lumo West Coast service from Stirling to London Euston. Union launches recruitment campaign on Lumo