RMT Campaign Achieves Major Pay Victory For OCS Eurostar Cleaners

RAIL UNION RMT today announced the end a pay dispute involving OCS cleaners working on the Eurostar contract after a new deal secured the union’s interim objective of getting all staff onto a minimum rate of £8 per hour by the autumn of this year.

A series of incremental increases under the package will say the minimum rate of pay rise from £7.40 an hour to £8.00 per hour by November - an increase of around 8% on the basic.

The victory has come following a hard fought recruitment and organising campaign amongst the staff led by RMT’s EPS Branch and after a ballot of members delivered a resounding mandate for industrial action in pursuit of pay justice.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“The achievement of RMT’s interim target of a £8 per hour minimum on OCS Eurostar is a major breakthrough in the fight for justice for cleaners and has come about through the sheer determination and guts of our members and the hard work of the RMT EPS Branch. They are a credit to the trade union movement.

This result comes just weeks after we secured a 10% increase for cleaners on the West Coast route and shows that fighting, industrial trade unionism can beat the defeatists and win major pay victories even in these days of ConDem austerity.

RMT is not stopping here. Our cleaners across the transport sector deserve far better and we will keep building the organisation and strength on the shop floor to win every single one of them justice on pay and conditions.”