Great Western Coffee Shop

From the West Sussex County Times (http://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/news/regional/great-western-railway-cleaners-to-stage-first-of-two-24-hour-strikes-1-7736180)

I hardly think GWR are quaking in their boots at the prospect of unclean trains.

It was reported at the base of an article about Southern Strikes in yesterday's Metro paper...with no details of dates

So it will be just like normal then....

So the RMT are calling their members out on strike because they want them to work for a different employer.  ::)

This is quite a long-running dispute and the third or forth strike.  The cleaners work for Mittie and are on very low wages and zero hours contracts. 

I think that the RMT are to be congratulated to sticking up for these workers.  Their poverty wages make them arguably a more deserving cause than the much better paid RMT Guards. 

The cleaners are employed by Servest Group. Mitie lost the contract. Servest Group took over in August 2016. The industrial action, is, I believe, partly s a result of changes to pay and conditions when staff were TUPE'd from Mitie to Servest. Along with the issues around agency employees.

http://www.servest.co.uk/servest-group-wins-great-western-railway/

http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/14960988.Train_and_station_cleaners_to_strike_before_Christmas/

They work for Servest according to the article. They'd probably be better off with the TGWU to be honest, it's a rather ludicrous pretext for a strike - "someone else should employ our members because their current employer doesn't pay them enough and they don't like their Ts & Cs"

Although I'm not familiar with the detail, if it's true that the TUPE has resulted in a worsening of conditions then that wouldn't seem an unreasonable reason to strike over.

That's the whole point about TUPE is that the conditions cannot get worse, but only for those transferred. If they do get worse conditions then they can resort to an employment tribunal rather than a  strike. Of course that does not stop them employing new people on different T&Cs. I expect that there is a fair turnover of people so many new people will have come in.

As above Mitie lost the contract to Servest group. The union are claiming that the conditions have worsened being the reason for the strike.
Of course after a TUPE the new company can consult on a change of T+Cs but it hasn't got to be accepted. I understand it is the proposed new terms that Servest are trying to impose that are the problem. When I was TUPE'd years ago (catering) the new employer offered us £3000 compensation for what was a change in T+Cs, we had to commit to the new employer for 12 months to get that pay out by way of a bonded contract or have to reimburse the employer the £3000. Every single one of us who was TUPE'd left between 12 and 18 months later  ::)  ;D

At a tangent, why do companies use these outsources. It works out more expensive surely as the Servest group (or whoever else) aren't going to be doing it for just the cleaners wage and materials as they will be profiting from it.

I know the healthcare agency appointed by my local council charge the council £16 an hour, but the carer is only paid £8 an hour for example.

It's a far closer balance than your pricing difference suggests by the time you add in H&R, employer's tax, NI and pension costs, uniform, etc, onto the £8 ... and it can be far better to contract to a specialist in a particular field than to take on staff, and a management team / structure knowing that staffing and a very different group of employees to the ones you have across the rest of your business.

There are two main reasons:

1) Its not something that is core to your business or something that you know anything about.  An example of this is if you are a bank and you contract out the office cleaning or building maintenance. 

2) The City sometimes look at the number of employees have as a measure of their efficiency (earnings per employee).  If you outsource the work you no longer employ them so you look better.

I know a number of companies suggest it is reason 1 when really it is reason 2, in this case reason 1 is interpreted so widely that you wondered if they had a core business at all.  In one case in a regulated business the regulator decided to override their business plan submission because it did not believe it had the knowledge to put one together.  The management then changed and there has been a massive insourcing which has taken many years and alot of investment.  So in that case the outsourcing could perhaps have been a form of asset stripping.

I believe Railtrack did rather too much of the outsourcing and then in the wake of Hatfield everyone found that it no longer had the skills to take the difficult decisions.  Network Rail has at least unwound some of that. 

A good reason to outsource is that the demand fluctuates and so a totally in house team is not possible. This is best done by having a core in-house team and using consultants or contractors for only some of the work.  That way the company retains the intelligent client role.

The moves to regulate excessive senior executive pay, by getting companies to report the ration of the highest to either the lowest of average earnings is likely to create another perverse incentive to outsource low paid roles.  Some of the banks look very good on this measure, they would look less good if they actually employed the office cleaners!

Finally, I know 1 person who worked for a company who strongly believed that when something had gone wrong for a customer the person who turned up to fix it must work directly for them so that they could control that important interaction.

On that basis he would have said that outsourcing the dealing with customer complaints is absolute stupidity. 

I agree with this 100% - I've worked with companies who have outsourced huge chunks of their customer service work (normally callcentres) to India, South Africa or providers such as Crapita - almost always to save money - with one of those companies the exercise was undertaken at huge expense with Business class flights for a dozen or so people to and from Bangalore on a regular basis, and competent though the providers were, ultimately the customers hated it, they wanted to deal with someone "down the road" and hence within a few years (at similarly great expense) everything was brought back onshore.

Customer service outsourcing, in 99% of cases, is a costcutting exercise undertaken by Businesses who decide that they would rather have more complaints than pay their own staff to prevent them/deal with them quickly. It is utter folly and GWRs action is a perfect example.............a proud new brand with customers being told that the aim is to answer their enquiry "within 28 days if possible"  ::)

My former employer did this. Outsourced to India, spent regular on management out to India, and then returned it to the UK within a couple of years.

Worked for a firm that was taken over and they wanted to make savings everywhere. Looked at things as diverse as cleaning, stationary, catering etc. When it came to the catering there was a guy running the operation who had been doing so for years. He was told that his last accounts would be sent to companies bidding to run the staff restaurant. The idea being that they could then make him and his staff redundant and save money. Every company who looked at his books said they couldn't compete on those numbers and backed off. I believe he's still there.

This from the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/21/cleaner-gwr-great-western-railway-agency-staff-pay-conditions-striking) puts a good reason for this strike.

Extracts below.

The words "slave labour" come to mind.

Whilst I am generally a supporter of a relatively lightly regulated workplace and taxation system, I cannot get my head around the use of zero hours contracts in circumstances like this and feel they are being abused by some of these agencies and by proxy the companies who engage these agencies. These contracts were never intended for and neither are they suitable for low paid workers in such circumstances - presumably GWR have a basic need for a fixed number of cleaners each day, so why not just employ the requisite number?! Or at least force their service provider to engage them on a decent T&C's. I think these guys have a valid and sensible reason for taking industrial action.

I blame the TOCs for all this outsourcing, and this includes GWR Customer Services, for wanting things done on the cheap and exploiting the workers involved.   It all rebounds back on the TOC and tarnishes any reputation they might have, but how many people are aware of all this outsourcing. 

Of course the cleaners are not employed by GWR.  They are ultimately contracted to GWR, but of course GWR is really just a contractor/franchisee itself.  

As so often the case, the buck stops with the DfT.  Why doesn't the franchise agreement specify - "all staff including agency staff to get living wage and no zero hours contracts except for work that is genuinely irregular (like rail replacement buses perhaps)"?

Of course these is also the fact that many of these workers will not be native British but will be citizens of poorer EU countries.  I am not sure were I stand on unlimited freedom of movement, but if we are going to have if it would be good if it came with some protection against exploitation.

 

Absolutely. Although I think the issue here firmly lies with GWR rather than DfT - First Group really ought to act with some sense of corporate conscience when engaging outsourcing agencies to ensure their employees receive fair and decent treatment. The low paid often do essential jobs which underpin whole organisations (cleaning, administrative jobs, security etc) and really should not be undervalued and exploited. I'm not saying they should get £1000/day, but a decent living wage and respectful treatment really don't cost very much at all.

Deregulation and franchising was inevitably going to lead to the exploitation of the poorest paid and least unionised sections of the workforce. Both DfT and GWR have a responsibility here, and both are culpable, though in the end it is the government who bear the ultimate responsibility.

Having seen the state that some trains are left in by their passengers, particularly late at night, I'm aware of just what an awful job being a train cleaner is. I wonder how many on this forum would choose to do their job based on their current terms.

You don't need unions for a company to act with a little conscience, just sensible management and shareholders. I think this dispute is squarely at First Group's door - they chose to outsource, so should have ensured that the company they engaged acted with a modicum of decency that their own, direct employees are afforded. The company I work for (in a mostly non-unionised industry) expect all third party suppliers to abide by their code of conduct and other policies, so it can be done and done without significant union intervention.

Completely agree with your second point. Hotels are even worse I believe!

Before too long the DfT will be consulting on the next franchise. A good time to suggest that the new specification includes clauses to ensure that agency staff are procured on terms that do not offend anyone with a sense of fair play.

Meanwhile: I'm not paid during my breaks, and I'm not paid by my employer if I'm off sick.

And I'm not on a 'zero hours contract'.   :-X

Do you not get Statutory Sick Pay?

Yes: that's all I get.  And that's why I don't go sick - no matter how rough I might be feeling.  Better to spread my germs around the workplace, that's my view!  :P ::) :o

I think that view of stock market listed companies is naïve.  The job of such a company is to make money for its shareholders.  In fact if they choose to put customers or staff ahead of shareholders that would actually be illegal.  It isn't that First Group is immoral it is that they are amoral.  The only way to get them to treat their agency staff better is to persuade them that their current conduct is damaging their shareholders through perhaps reputational damage or to make it a legal requirement. 

Sure there are plenty of companies that treat their staff well, but they don't do it because of this mythical "corporate conscience".  They do it because they see the shareholder value in retaining happy staff.  Cleaners unfortunately, are seen as replaceable units of unskilled labour and so the normal considerations of wanting to retain them and keep them happy carry less weight than with other workers. 

I think what you say is wrong in law, but is in line with the culture of our time. The the legal duty of a company is not to make money; it is to carry out the objects of the company as stated in its memorandum and articles of association (mem & arts).  Of course the company has to make money for its shareholders as well, but that is not its purpose. 

I rather hope that the mem & arts for GWR say something about providing a passenger train service.   

When companies loose sight of their legal purpose then they do poor customer service. If you treat your staff poorly they are  less likely to treat your customers well.

Classic case is Southern whose staff relations at the moment are so poor they cannot run a service. 

Of course when it comes to executives the directors somehow see the need to provide (perhaps more than) adequate pay and conditions.  So why not the people at the sharp end who actually have to deal with their customers.

The creation of a limited liability company as a separate legal entity has privileges in law and so it is not unreasonable that there should be a quid pro quo to society. 

Not sure why you mention llc companies - the ones we are discussing are all Plc...

In theory yes, but who enforces that duty?  I can't sue, say Southern, for failing to provide a rail service just because it is in their memorandum and articles.  They will not get struck off the companies register for failing to provide a train service.  Their CEO will not get the boot for failing to provide carry out the objects of the company, but he will get the sack if the shareholders decide he is not making them enough money.