OUTSOURCED cleaners and catering workers began a two-day strike against low pay at TransPennine Express (TPE) today.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) members involved in the row are employed by private contractors.

The rail union said that the catering workers at Rail Gourmet and cleaners at Bidvest Noonan should be employed in-house.

RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said low pay was how outsourcing giants made money out of the rail network.

“Companies like Rail Gourmet and Bidvest Noonan hide behind the fact that TPE won’t take responsibility for low pay on their contracts,” he said. 

“The government needs to act to end the scourge of low pay for outsourced workers and bring them in-house where they belong.”

TPE customer experience & transformation director Andrew McClements said that the action meant “many of our services will also have limited catering available and sadly, a number of services will have no catering at all.”​