Rail workers to strike in pay dispute

9:30am Thursday 6th September 2012 in News

CLEANERS on the East Coast mainline and London Midland services are to strike on Monday to fight for more pay.

Members of the RMT union working for contractors ISS, will mount a picket at Kings Cross to put pressure on ISS, East Coast and London Midland, the union said.

RMT members voted to take action against the employer after it offered no pay rise for three years.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “The scandal of low pay on two of the country’s busiest and most prestigious rail routes continues with ISS assuming that they can get away with exploiting workers who are key to delivering high quality services. ISS are plainly wrong and they now have a workforce that is organised, angry and determined to win this fight for pay justice.”

An East Coast spokesman said the strike was not expected to impact on customers. “This dispute is between ISS and a group of its employees who started working on the railway before East Coast took over the running of the franchise in 2009.

“Employees within this group are currently paid between £0.42 and £1.42 above the minimum wage. Their terms and conditions are a matter for these individuals and ISS, although we are discussing this issue with ISS.”

Comments(6)

Gary Gilmores Eyes says...
10:12am Thu 6 Sep 12

To be fair would you notice the difference? NO

When I have travelled by these trains even after the cleaners have been and done their 'cleaning' they are still filthy!

Cleaning is not just emptying bins and wiping over the toilet areas!
The carpets and seats are disgusting.

They want to be recruiting staff who will actually clean properly.


'ISS are plainly wrong and they now have a workforce that is organised, angry and determined to win this fight for pay justice'

I would suggest that in reality they are not organised and have no power at all as on just above minimum wage the skills/influence/sca
rcity they have in the marketplace are nil.

Have no skills in life to offer an employer = treated like sh!t as anyone can or in their case cannot do the job!

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Zetkin says...
12:20pm Thu 6 Sep 12

Good luck to the cleaners.

Despite East Coast's weasel words, they do have a responsibility to ensure that everyone directly or indirectly employed by them is treated fairly and gets a decent wage.

Unfortunately most train operating companies have taken full advantage of privatisation to drive down wages and conditions in order to boost profits. That they are doing this with the aid of massive public subsidy is scandalous.

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Oncebitten says...
2:18pm Thu 6 Sep 12

I travel by train regularly and can not believe how some passengers are prepared to leave their seats/space they have sat ......and the passengers that can't be arsed( pardon the pun) to flush the toilet.
The cleaners deserve every penny they get, I for one would not want their jobs...

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yorkshirelad says...
3:09pm Thu 6 Sep 12

I also agree the way that train carriages are left in a real state is appalling and it's not like this in many other countries. There's a real 'chuck it on the floor' culture here.

Unlike the first poster here, it's plainly obvious to most reasonable people that anyone in any job deserves to be treated fairly.

I suspect that outsourcing these functions is done to drive down wages and without knowing the details, I suspect it's highly likely these people are underpaid for the job they do.

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Magicman! says...
1:06am Fri 7 Sep 12

Every comment except the first one has merit. The cleaning is outsourced to the lowest bidder in order to push profits (with East Coast I'm not totally sure how this works as EC is government-owned via Directly Operated Railways ltd, but for other companies they would be expected to pay extortionate sums of money to the government for the privelege of running trains on the line - look at the current West Coast saga for evidence of that, as well as the fact National Express East Coast went bust as they couldn't afford the payments) - and as the cleaning company has the lowest bid they don't pay their staff very much and so the staff don't have any motivation to go above and beyond what they are contracted to do.

Cleaning carpets and Seats on a 9 coach train is a lengthy process that can only be done when the train is on depot for a scheduled exam/maintenance... which isn't helped because the reliability of the Class 91's continues to decrease and so more trains (including at least 2 hired sets from Stagecoach EMT) need to be stationed strategically as 'hot spares' in case a 91 has a paddy. This leaves very little slack for trains to be out of use regularly for a full cleaning.

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TheColdTruth says...
6:52pm Fri 7 Sep 12

If it leads to higher fares the cleaners won't be needed at all, since there will be fewer passengers!

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