As tube cleaners ballot for action RMT reveals they would have to work 20 years to earn a TfL executive’s annual pay packet.

As tube union RMT ballots Tube cleaners for industrial action for pay justice the union has revealed that an Underground cleaner would have to work for nearly 20 years to earn the £374,000 TfL’s highest executive makes in just one year, while it would take them 246 years to earn the £4.5 million the CEO of the US outsourcing company that employs them pulls in annually.

Yet in spite of the shocking pay differentials, tight-fisted ABM and TfL executives refuse to give these low paid workers staff travel rights on the TfL network.

Even worse, hypocritical TfL bosses themselves get the staff travel benefit while denying it to the people who clean their trains and stations.

RMT is balloting ABM’s cleaners for industrial action as part of the union’s fight for parity with their London Underground colleagues in relation to pensions, sick pay and staff travel, following the failure of both ABM and TfL to tackle this injustice.

The union’s research now shows that the people responsible for this scandal are earning astronomical amounts while enjoying final salary pensions and staff travel benefits that they are denying to the people who work hard every day and night to keep the Underground clean.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:

“It is scandalous that the people who do some of the hardest and dirtiest work on London’s transport network are treated differently to other London Underground staff while the company that employs them and its top executives profit from their work.
"The disgrace of the two-tier workforce on London Underground is a stain on the capital city and RMT intends to make support for this essential group of workers, keeping London moving day in and day out, a major election issue.

“We are balloting our cleaner members on the London Underground employed by ABM and are campaigning for strong yes vote for industrial action in their fight for equal treatment at work with regard to travel facilities, sick pay and a decent pension.”