Better United Than Divided
Kay Green interviews RMT rep Bella Fashola
It took me several weeks to get a chance to sit down and talk to Bella, a National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) rep for the Churchill contractors. They clean trains for Southern, Gatwick Express, Great Northern and Thameslink. I’d met her on a strike day at Hastings Station. Since then, she’s been busy trying to make up for the income she’d lost during (unpaid) strike days. That meant 12-hour shifts, and when you work for Churchill, that often means 14-hour days at least, because cleaners get no help with, or money for, travel to work. If stations are closed for any reason they must either travel further to work or go without. And where does that leave Network Rail’s idea that workers must have a clear 12 hours rest between shifts?
Bella Fashola
Discussing that conundrum led us into talking about all the consequences of the Covid years that hit minimum-wage contract-workers (those people we called “essential workers” and “key workers” during lockdown, and then forgot about).
Bella tells me workers still lose money over Covid. On the railways, contractors think you can work if you have Covid. The railway companies say you can’t – so for the cleaners, a positive Covid test means they can’t work but they don’t get paid for missing work. At best, the contractors will tell the cleaners to use their rest days or holiday days to “make up for” days they aren’t allowed on the stations. Imagine, ‘What did you do on your holidays? I stayed at home with Covid.’ Lovely!
It seems much of the Government and media discussions of current problems are based on people in relatively secure work, earning average and above salaries. For outsourced workers, most of that discussion is sheer fantasy. Only during my recent discussions with RMT workers did I realise many of the platform and station staff I know are zero-hour contract workers. Many of the people you see working in your station or on your train are still earning well under £10 per hour. The RMT cleaners are demanding a rise to £15 per hour – they are not asking for the world, they are ordinary people asking for a wage to match the work they do in a safety critical environment.
So if you are lucky enough to have a relatively secure salary with the attendant benefits, please consider the situation of many of RMT’s workers, and all the problems associated with working for contractors. The key issue is that contracts are quite short, so contract negotiators are constantly looking for ways to shave what they have to pay for, and the service they have to provide. One of the consequences that Bella told me about is the women who miss out on maternity pay if they have the misfortune to give birth on the wrong day. If a baby is premature, the mother is expected to live on air until the “agreed” due date for maternity payments. Another is that, despite all the dangers of the Covid years, stations and trains are getting progressively less well cleaned, as contractors cut corners to try to under-bid each other on costs.
Interestingly though, for many workers there was also an unexpected advantage to Covid lockdowns and limitations. Insecure and outsourced workers were, just like the rest of us, forced to stay in one place for longer. That gave an increased opportunity for relationships to develop, and for unions to organise. In Bella’s case, there was a second factor. She lost more work-time due to her mother being diagnosed with cancer and needing care – which gave her time to think and plan – but also the experience of it taking five weeks to get a proper payment on Universal Credit to cover her lost earnings. It made her sufficiently vociferous about the plight of underpaid, insecure workers that the good folks at the RMT said “It’s time to get organised.”
Bella is this year’s TUC organisation award winner. She won this for her part in organising Churchill cleaners – made up of 40 nationalities – to stand on picket lines for 23 days in solidarity from Hastings to Kings Lynn.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply