Victory in sight for train cleaners

Transport For Wales (TFW) has stepped back from industrial action planned by the RMT rail union and agreed to talks that would bring “in-house” all train cleaners currently working for outsourced company Axis.

Cleaners had voted to strike on July 2nd but suspended their action when TFW agreed to convene a working group with the RMT to discuss bringing all cleaning on the Wales and Borders franchise in-house. The first meeting of the in-sourcing working group will take place later this month.

Outsourced workers generally have worse pay and conditions than in-house workers and the union can negotiate directly with the train company to ensure that they receive security of employment, full sick pay and holiday pay.

Yet again it demonstrates that determined strike action can secure big improvements for workers in more precarious and low paid agency jobs.

But it is shameful that low paid cleaners had to threaten industrial action to force TFW to recognise that the cleaners should be working directly for the company. The Welsh government should have brought the whole network in house by re-nationalising the railway and running it as a publicly run network.

RMT Assistant General Secretary Mick Lynch said;

“This news is a tribute to our members’ determination to fight against the injustice of a two-tier workforce and is the culmination of a long and hard fought union campaign.

“We welcome this decision by Transport for Wales, which also recognizes the Covid-19 crisis exposes the essential nature of cleaning as an integral part of our industry, and I believe this establishes a template that should be followed elsewhere, not least by Mayor Sadiq Khan in London who has the opportunity to bring 2,000 cleaners in house when the current outsourcing contract ends in 2022.”