ABM Cleaners

From London Transport Region's Executive Member Janine Booth

BRANCH SPHERES OF INFLUENCE
The agreed spheres of influence are attached on a separate sheet.

Council of Executives decision, 4 September:

We note the report from our Regional Organiser regarding spheres of influence of branches within London Transport region. We endorse the report and instruct the General Secretary to ensure its implementation.

We note that RMT currently has at least eight ongoing disputes with cleaning employers with ‘live’ ballot mandates, with issues heading towards disputes in other companies as well. We aim to hold co-ordinated strike action to pursue these disputes, perhaps a 48-hour strike in October or November.

We instruct the General Secretary to obtain as a matter of urgency reports from all relevant lead officers as to the feasibility of this in the disputes with companies for which they have responsibility, and to place responses in front of us as they are received, and in any case within 21 days.

From General Secretary Bob Crow

The above matter has been considered again by the General Grades Committee and has taken the following decision:-

We note the report from our Regional Organiser and correspondence from our Branch Secretary. We congratulate our members for the action they have taken so far, and instruct the General Secretary to conduct a new ballot for strike action and industrial action short of strike action, in pursuit of our demands for agreements (with implementation dates) on the issues of:

• a substantial pay rise to at least the London Living Wage
• sick pay
• overtime rate
• allocation of overtime
• days in lieu
• better roster system
• weekly working hours
• uniform issue
  

We note the reply from Initial, that this is a group wide initiative from Initial Facilities to implement the Kronos Time and Attendance System into all contracts by end of 2012, with both biometric and telephone systems in operation. We also note the views of our representatives, who strongly oppose this move, rightly seeing it as an attack on their civil liberties and a weapon for management to use to victimise our members.

We therefore instruct the General Secretary to:
1. Urgently contact Initial management demanding a meeting to discuss our objections.

LOW-PAID CLEANERS on the prestigious East Coast mainline working for ISS are to strike for 24 hours on September 10 after voting by a huge 98 per cent margin for action against an employer that has offered no pay rise for three years.

They will be joined on strike by cleaners working for the same scrooge sub-contractor on London Midland, where a 24-hour stoppage has already been held at depots in Bletchley, Northampton and King’s Heath.

In both disputes ISS has failed to respond to calls for a living wage for workers who play a key role in maintaining rail services.

RMT cleaner members working for Initial and ISS demonstrated outside the Olympic Park at Stratford Station on August 9, 2012 as they kick off a 48 hour strike for pay justice and Olympics recognition. Filmed and edited by Andrew Brattle.

Justice has prevailed in the case of RMT member William Etchells who has succeeded in his claim for unfair dismissal against Churchill Cleaning Services Limited – contractors on the Tyne and Wear Metro.

Transport union RMT said today that it has joined forces with web campaigners and union resource Labour Start to launch a global “cyber picket” of London Mayor Boris Johnson in the fight for Olympics pay justice for tube cleaners working for ISS and Initial.

The cleaners began a 48 hours strike at 05:30 hours on Thursday 9th August 2012 and the action runs until 05:29 hours on Saturday 11th August 2012.

Pickets were out in force at Stratford and other London locations yesterday and there will be another protest at Stratford at twelve noon today.

RMT union & its members are demanding:-

• SICK PAY: Cleaning jobs are dangerous and when working with
  chemicals with a combination of poor or inferior PPE staff often get sick.
  However the cleaning Companies do not care about their Workers.
• A DECENT PENSION: Many Cleaners are working well beyond other Workers retirement age because they cannot afford to retire as they have no pension to retire on. This is a disgrace in 2012 Britain.
• ANNUAL PAY INCREASE: Why would any bosses object to this?