TRAIN operating companies were criticised at the RMT AGM today after it emerged that many do not provide bespoke safe and secure areas for female workers to breastfeed.  

The union has written to firms demanding action but has received no satisfactory response.  

Delegates are now demanding that, as part of all RMT collective bargaining agreements, recommended facilities include a break allowance for mothers to express milk, provision of a clean, warm, private room that is not the toilet for expressing milk, a secure, clean fridge to store expressed milk and flexible working hours for breastfeeding mothers.

Speaking on the unanimously endorsed motion, Darlington 1 branch delegate Jessica Robinson said: “In 2025, we still have breastfeeding mothers forced into dirty toilets during their lunch break to express milk, with a cooler bag to put it in if we’re lucky.

“Employers do have a legal obligation to protect the health and safety of breastfeeding mothers and to provide a space for them to rest at some point during the working day, but everything else is currently just a guideline.”

She added: “We’re living through an intense cost-of-living crisis, which sends women back to work from maternity leave far sooner than they ordinarily would because they cannot afford to live on the pittance that is statutory maternity pay.”

Emma Abel of Sheffield and District, who moved the original resolution, told the conference: “There is no legislation in place, so the employer has the choice as to whether they provide these facilities or not.”

She mocked employers for failing breastfeeding mothers, accusing companies in some cases of “sticking a sign on a broom cupboard door" as a “token gesture.”