From RMT Regional Council newsletter

LUL Cleaning Bosses must have been wondering what hit them! First RMT cleaners voted by 99.2% to take strike action and walked out a week later.

Fifty MPs from all parties signed a motion demanding that cleaners should be paid at least the London Living Wage (£7.20 an hour) instead of at least the legal minimum wage (£5.52 an hour).

The bosses have reacted in their usual manner – scabs and agency workers have been used, cleaners have been bullied and threatened with the sack if they go on strike. Reps have been threatened with disciplinaries – one cleaner was told he would be docked an hour’s pay after talking to an RMT official!

After many years working for rock bottom wages, cleaners have been asked to prove their legal right to work. Management say this is nothing to do with the strike or cleaners standing up for themselves.

Some cleaners are ‘self employed’ – a way of using casual labour with no employment rights as their services could be dispensed with if they took strike action. Others work for sub-sub contractors and have not been balloted. Nevertheless this is the start of a fight back to end super-exploitation on our Tube system. Working conditions are often appalling.

The RMT is demanding the London Living Wage, travel, holiday pay, sick pay, decent pensions and no more ‘third party’ sackings. Under this system a cleaner can be sacked with no charge or opportunity to defend themselves simply because it is claimed that a manager from Metronet or TubeLines doesn’t want them on site.

Meetings are now taking place to put on further strike action and to find ways of involving more and more cleaners. All London Underground workers should talk to cleaners and let them know how much support is out there.