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RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: september 2008 :: RMTnews
10
The threat of a 48-hour strike by
more than 700 RMT members
working for four cleaning
subcontractors ISS, ITS, ICS and
GBM on London Underground
has finally delivered the London
living wage to all Tube cleaners.
After days of intensive talks
at conciliation service ACAS,
workers on Tube Lines contracts
will receive an initial 60p an
hour increase from September 1,
and will receive a further £1.30
hourly increase from April 1
2009.
Workers on Metronet
contracts will receive the
London living wage, currently
£7.45 an hour, from the
beginning of September.
RMT cleaners had already
taken strike action twice in their
campaign for a living wage: a
48-hour strike in July and an
earlier 24-hour stoppage in
June.
The deal also included ending
the practice of forcing cleaners
to pay for their own travel
between the stations they are
cleaning.
RMT general secretary Bob
Crow said the result was a
victory for all-grades industrial
trade unionism and a
vindication of the hard work
activists put in organising Tube
cleaners under difficult
circumstances.
“London mayor Boris
Johnson did not hand Tube
cleaners the London living
wage, as some have claimed, it
was a hard-fought battle by
cleaners who were backed by
fellow transport workers from
drivers to clerical workers
organised in one union,” he
said.
He said that it was a massive
breakthrough which would see
all Tube cleaners paid the
London living wage by next
April at the latest.
The union would have liked
to have seen £7.45 implemented
immediately for all, but on Tube
Lines contracts we have secured
an immediate minimum increase
of 60p an hour with the rest
following by next April.
However, that is a massive
improvement on the prospect
presented by the mayor of
having to wait for contracts to
be re-negotiated, which would
have left some members waiting
until 2012.
Tube Lines also assured the
union that it would take over
the entire responsibility for
funding the London living wage
on their contracts from 2010.
The union believes that it
should also be an ideal
opportunity for Tube Lines to
take its cleaning back in-house.
“There are other issues that
remain to be dealt with, as well
as internal funding issues
arrangements between
contractors and clients, but
cleaning members have made a
principled stand for a living
wage and have conducted
themselves in a way that is a
credit to the entire trade union
movement.
“I am sure that people will
recognise that this result has
been achieved by taking united
action and that this is a
fantastic result for workers we
were told would never be
organised,” Bob Crow said.
RMT TUBE CLEANERS’ WIN
LONDON LIVING WAGE
The threat of escalating strike action by cleaners on London
Underground delivers the London living wage to all Tube cleaners