Rail cleaners campaign on pay

The RMT transport union’s campaign for better pay and conditions for staff at Churchill Cleaners on Tyne and Wear Metro and Arriva Trains Wales moved up a gear this month and has taken on both industrial and political dimensions.

Cleaners on the Tyne and Wear Metro took part in a seven-day long strike this month and have been out for nearly twenty days in all, over attempts by the company to impose zero percent pay awards on a workforce “already on the bare minimum wage”.

Union action is aimed not just at Churchill Cleaners but at the German franchise owner DB Regio and the Labour-dominated transport authority NEXUS.

In Wales, the RMT dispute to improve pay levels got personal with the union alleging “systematic and co-ordinated campaign of bullying and intimidation”.

The RMT Regional Organiser held initial talks with the management only to be met with “a total refusal by Churchill’s to offer any form of pay award to RMT members”.

Now the union says it has evidence of collusion between Churchill Cleaners and Arriva Trains Wales managers to apply individual pressure to cleaning staff in a deliberate and cynical attempt to influence the outcome of the ballot.

It is raising the issue directly with Arriva Trains Wales at senior level to get it to “dump” the contractor.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow promised to step up the political fight by engaging with members of the Welsh Assembly, MPs and the Wales TUC .