Cleaners Strike on GWR?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From the West Sussex County Times

Cleaners on Great Western Railway will stage the first of two 24-hour strikes on Friday in a dispute over pay and conditions. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union employed by contractors Servest UK^▸ (United Kingdom) will walkout from 6am and from the same time a week later.

The dispute, involving almost 200 workers, is over a number of issues including pay, annual leave and the use of agency workers. The union is calling for agency workers to be made members of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff to end the current situation of a "two tier" workforce.

The workers voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action. RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) general secretary Mick Cash said: " RMT will not stand by while they are mercilessly exploited by privateers, while rail companies fill their coffers as fares soar through the roof." A delegation of cleaners will hand in a petition to the rail firm's office in Swindon.

[John R]

I hardly think GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are quaking in their boots at the prospect of unclean trains.

[ChrisB]

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

[LiskeardRich]

I hardly think GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are quaking in their boots at the prospect of unclean trains.

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

[TaplowGreen]

From the West Sussex County Times

Cleaners on Great Western Railway will stage the first of two 24-hour strikes on Friday in a dispute over pay and conditions. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union employed by contractors Servest UK^▸ (United Kingdom) will walkout from 6am and from the same time a week later.

The dispute, involving almost 200 workers, is over a number of issues including pay, annual leave and the use of agency workers. The union is calling for agency workers to be made members of GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff to end the current situation of a "two tier" workforce.

The workers voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action. RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) general secretary Mick Cash said: " RMT will not stand by while they are mercilessly exploited by privateers, while rail companies fill their coffers as fares soar through the roof." A delegation of cleaners will hand in a petition to the rail firm's office in Swindon.

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

[Tim]

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^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) 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. 

[JayMac]

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^▸ (The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.)'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/

[TaplowGreen]

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^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) 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. 

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"

[John R]

Although I'm not familiar with the detail, if it's true that the TUPE^▸ (The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.) has resulted in a worsening of conditions then that wouldn't seem an unreasonable reason to strike over.

[ellendune]

Although I'm not familiar with the detail, if it's true that the TUPE^▸ (The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.) 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.

[LiskeardRich]

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 Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.) 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   

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.

[grahame]

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.

[ellendune]

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.

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. 

[TaplowGreen]

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.

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^▸ (Great Western Railway) 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" 

[LiskeardRich]

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.

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