Metronet SSR has dumped cleaning contractor Blue Diamond after it was caught out paying cleaners less than the wage it had agreed to pay them in its bid. And that wage was paltry enough to start with.
The T&G union has been quick to claim the credit for this, after exposing the under-payment.
However, the T&G has been recruiting cleaners in competition with RMT, which already had members in Blue Diamond. We already have too many competing unions on the Tube - now the T&G's arrival on the scene is going to divide us even more. The employers must think it's hilarious.
The T&G's campaign over the wages, whilst it helped to get a result, was organised over the workers' heads, directly with Metronet, without involving the cleaners. T&G officials may have won good media coverage, but while the T&G is getting membership forms in, there is very little evidence that it is organising cleaners into branches, or getting reps elected and trained.
And why is the T&G accepting that cleaners should be paid as little as £5.50 an hour, when even the scab-herding Mayor of London has called for a minimum wage of £6.70?!
Blue Diamond's appalling actions show how easy it is for cowboy contractors to exploit the system of sub-contracting to attack pay and conditions. All these contracts should be cancelled and everyone who works on the Tube - including cleaners - employed directly by a unified, publicly-owned London Underground.
However, the workforce is weakened in its ability to do this by being divided into two different unions, which is the result of the T&G organising where RMT already had members.
Both the RMT and the T&G have recruited significant numbers of cleaners in the recent period - but only the RMT has made a serious attempt to organise them.
