The RMT is stepping up its campaign opposing outsourcing, after Transport for London awarded a five-year cleaning contract to Mitie earlier this month.

The contract covers the cleaning of trains and Underground stations, bus stations, TfL offices, the London Transport Museum and waste collection at City Hall.

Mitie will employ more than 2,000 people who will all be paid the London Living Wage as a minimum, while staff earning no more than 10 per cent above the LLW will be entitled to free travel.

The RMT is calling on the Mayor to terminate the new contract, and will stage a demonstration outside City Hall in east London on 4 February.

The union said the decision shows that ‘the Mayor has effectively relinquished control of TfL to private outsourcing interests, allowing corporate priorities to override both his democratic mandate and the interests of workers and passengers’.

It is calling on the Mayor to publish an ‘urgent plan’ for the early insourcing of all TfL cleaners, and immediately arrange ‘decent’ sick pay for DLR cleaners, who are also outsourced and, according to the union, only receive sick pay if they are terminally ill. They are currently staging a protest strike.

General secretary Eddie Dempsey said: ‘The Mayor was elected with a democratic mandate to run London’s transport system in the public interest.

‘However, instead he is allowing TfL to be captured by private corporations operating beyond democratic control.

‘This protest is a part of RMT's campaign to see the mass insourcing of thousands of workers into the transport industry which is a Labour government commitment. Cleaners should be directly employed, paid properly and treated with dignity, and TfL must be wrestled back from the privateers who clearly now dominate decision-making.’

TfL said it will be ‘working with Mitie and trade union partners on a comprehensive pilot in order to understand the necessary steps to deliver these services in-house in an efficient, affordable and productive manner’. However, TfL conceded that it does not yet have the appropriate ‘internal expertise’ to provide such services itself, and said the pilot should improve this.

The RMT is also calling on the London Assembly to launch a formal inquiry into the extent of ‘corporate influence’ over TfL, including its relationships with outsourcing firms and private operators.

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