Train cleaners have headed to London today to protest outside the Department for Transport and to call on the Secretary of State to end ‘the scandal of poverty pay’.

The RMT union has called on Mark Harper to give a mandate to Train Operating Companies to stop outsourcing the contracts of cleaning trains.

Cleaners have voted in favour of strike action in pursuit of a £15 per hour pay packet, sick pay and decent pensions.

Train operators such as Govia Thameslink Railway, LNER, Northern, Great Western Railway, Avanti West Coast, TransPennine Express, Southeastern, Eurostar and HS1 contract out the cleaning to comapnies lke Churchill, Atalian Servest, Mitie and Bidvest Noonan.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “The treatment of cleaners on our railways is scandalous and yet another part of the generalised attack on working people but it’s one the industry likes to sweep under the carpet.

“Our members are part of a forgotten group of workers who were rightly praised to the rafters during the Covid crisis but now employers and the government expect them to suffer in silence.

“Many outsourced cleaners are reliant on food banks and relying on credit cards to get by because some are paid so poorly.

“They will be making a lot of noise today outside the DfT and we hope Mark Harper will listen.”