ScotRail slammed for plans to outsource complaints team to French firm
Passengers looking for a refund for a late or cancelled service must speak with a call centre in Glasgow which is run separately from the railway.
The customer services team, which handles complaints and personal injury claims, was previously operated by Dutch transport giant Abellio under a contract agreed before Scottish ministers took charge of ScotRail in 2022.
But it is set to be run by Teleperformance going forward after a deal was announced to employees last week.
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The company runs call centres in 34 countries and has previously been accused of using "union busting" tactics against workers.
Simon Barrow, national secretary of the SNP Trade Union Group, said outsourcing the complaints team to Teleperformance would be a "bad move" as he pushed for an end to "private profiteering".
He told The National: 'ScotRail's current intention to switch to a new French-owned outsource contractor for its complaints service is a really bad move at a time when building confidence in publicly owned services, and making them genuinely public, is vital.
'But this is only part of the problem. A significant portion of the maintenance and operation of ScotRail stations and depots is already outsourced, and a facilities management services review may well push further in this direction.
'What Scotland needs instead is a reliable, high quality public service that brings jobs and opportunities to Scotland by ending private profiteering.
'As with opposing ticket office closures, which are a serious disservice to customers and staff alike, we will be supporting the campaigns of our rail union colleagues to bring back real public control and benefit in Scotland's rail network.'
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ScotRail has said no contracts have been awarded and the company said it would not comment while it is in the "final stages" of a competitive procurement process.
Gordon Martin, the RMT union's Scottish organiser, said: "We oppose all outsourcing on the railway and want to see all rail workers insourced in Scotland.
"Our insourcing campaign will continue across Britain until we achieve justice for all our outsourced members."
An insider told the Record "most people don't know" the customer experience operation is still outsourced despite the train operator having been brought under public control.
"We expected, rightly, that a nationalised railway would bring us in-house," they said.
A ScotRail spokesperson said: "No contracts have been awarded. We are in the final stages of a competitive procurement exercise for our customer contact centre services, and wouldn't comment on this process while it is live and ongoing."
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