A view of Great British Railways branding on the side of a train carriage at the South Western Railway (SWR) Bournemouth Traincare Depot, in Dorset, May 22, 2025
OUTSOURCING should be banned when rail companies are brought under the ownership of Great British Railways, young RMT members told the union’s AGM in Glasgow today.
Young workers are already twice as likely as older staff to have precarious jobs, and the union says future public rail operations must guarantee secure, unionised employment as the norm.
Kierin Offlands of East London Rail said: “The RMT will fight to bring every outsourced worker in-house and pressure the DfT to ban subcontracting in Great British Railways.”
Etienne Ramsay, a first-time delegate to the AGM, said: “As we’ve already covered a lot in this conference, outsourcing is a massive scourge in our way.
“Over 40 years of privatisation, we’ve seen it right across the industry and now it’s time to bring all those jobs back in-house.
“With the introduction of Great British Railways, it’s very important that all of those jobs that have been outsourced, like cleaners and security guards, are brought back in-house on the same terms and conditions as everyone else.
“Within London Transport and across TfL, we already have major parts of the workforce outsourced. This has to end.”
RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey urged delegates to get behind the campaign to rid the industry of outsourcing and to ensure the government delivers the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation,” as Labour promised before the last general election.
He said: “We believe outsourcing should be ended.
“We want to make that a reality because we don’t believe anyone should be profiting out of public service when that money could be used to run a service better or reduce the fares or to do other positive things.”
Mr Dempsey pointed out that there had been progress in Scotland, where ScotRail has been taken into public ownership and has abolished peak fares.
He pointed out that if outsourced cleaners on South East Trains were given travel benefits, that would equate to an 18 per cent pay rise.
“Right across all these outsourced cleaning contracts, there is systemic racism and there is an over-representation of women,” Mr Dempsey added.
“If you really wanted to improve women’s working lives, you’d do some insourcing.”
As government cuts slash British Transport Police funding by £8.5 million, brutal attacks on transport workers are surging across Britain — but 75 per cent are now prepared for industrial action to protect themselves, reports SEAN TYLER
