Outsourcing train cleaners is racist, says RMT union

Telegraph

05-05-2025

Outsourcing train cleaners is racist, the RMT rail union has said.
The union said that it wanted to end 'exploitative' agency hiring on the railways.
It said outsourcing trapped thousands of black and minority ethnic staff in insecure jobs without pensions, training or promotion prospects, creating an 'effectively segregated' workforce.
Outsourcing also lowered service standards across the rail network, the union said, as it called on the Government to bring the agency workers in-house.
Eddie Dempsey, general secretary, said the RMT intended to fight 'tooth and nail' to hold Sir Keir Starmer to his promise to oversee 'the biggest wave of in-sourcing for a generation'.
Mr Dempsey said black and ethnic minority workers 'bear the major brunt of this super-exploitation and are effectively trapped in second-class employment, unable to progress in a train company or Network Rail'.
These claims are detailed in a new report, How Outsourcing Embeds Systemic Racism on the Railway, published on Tuesday.
The report found that 58 per cent of outsourced cleaners and caterers were non-white, compared with a quarter of staff employed directly by train operators.
People of African ethnic origin made up 22 per cent of all outsourced cleaners, but only five per cent of the workforce at National Rail and other operators.
To understand the impact of this disparity, the RMT surveyed more than 500 outsourced workers. It said the results 'shed light on how outsourcing creates occupational segregation' and is 'reproducing systemic racism'.
Lack career opportunities
Train company employees have benefits, training and career progression that agency workers do not, despite working alongside one another on a daily basis, the union said.
Seventy-seven per cent of black and minority ethnic respondents reported having never discussed a promotion, and 68 per cent said they had had no further training in the past three years.
One respondent told the RMT: 'The only time the manager talks to his employees is to discipline them. I'd probably get the sack for asking.'
Not all those surveyed wanted to move to a different role, with some just wanting to be properly paid and recognised.
'I'm happy being a cleaner but would be happier working for LNER, to be the same as the other station employees,' said another respondent.
The report said: 'The prolific use of outsourcing by private train operating companies, and the failure to challenge this on the part of Network Rail and the publicly owned TOCs [train operating companies] has led to a significant level of ethnic and racial segregation in the rail workforce.'
Eighty-three per cent of those surveyed said they believed passengers would get better service if roles were brought in-house under Great British Railways.
'We would be given proper training on how to deal with the customer and give the customers much better advice,' said one respondent. Another suggested the Government could reinvest money not spent on private contractors in improving train services.
A spokesman for Network Rail said: 'Network Rail has a history of insourcing since deciding to bring the day-to day maintenance of our railway 'in-house' in 2004 when 15,000 workers were moved from private contractors, into Network Rail.
'The day-to-day safe running, operation and maintenance of our railway is delivered by direct employees.'
A Department for Transport (DtT) spokesman told The Telegraph: 'Diversity and inclusion is pivotal to any industry's success, and we will continue working with industry to ensure everyone that works on our network is valued and respected.'
The spokesman said Labour's plan to renationalise the railways, creating a Great British Railways state-owned enterprise, 'will sweep away decades of failure, ending fragmentation and waste and delivering for passengers, taxpayers and staff.'