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 general secretary Bob Crow said:

“ISS boasts on its website about how fairly it treats its workers, but behind the corporate claims is the sordid reality of effective pay cuts being imposed year-on-year on cleaners already on rock-bottom rates.

“ISS should be ashamed, but East Coast and London Midland also have a moral responsibility to ensure that the people who work on their contracts area treated decently, and it is no good hiding behind the shabby excuse that cleaners’ pay is a matter for the contractors.

“Our members at ISS on the London Midland contract have already staged a rock-solid stoppage at three depots, and they will be joined on September 10 by workers on the East Coast contract where the feeling is running so high that only one vote was cast against taking action.

“ISS should take note of the clear anger of its staff and cough up a decent pay offer, and East Coast and London Midland should get their heads out of the sand and recognise their own responsibility to make sure it happens – or better still bring the contracts back in-house.”