GTR owners paid fat cat salaries while passengers suffer

The bosses of Go-Ahead, which owns Govia Thameslink Railway, the UK’s worst performing railway,  have been paying themselves and shareholders huge sums and bonuses while passengers suffer on a daily basis, rail union RMT can reveal today.

The “Remedial plan” to improve services published last week by the Government instructed GTR to “report 4 weekly to its owners Go-Ahead and Keolis on progress in delivering the plan.”

Yet while passengers are suffering, on what is now a franchise in total meltdown, company accounts show that Go-Ahead Group plc Chief Executive David Brown received £2.16 million in total remuneration between July 2014 and June 2015, with the majority of this comprised of bonus payments.

Astonishingly part of the bonuses were awarded to reflect company achievements including the “successful mobilisation of the GTR franchise, the UK’s largest franchise” and the fact that “rail division profit [was] ahead of initial expectations.”

Brown’s remuneration is up from £1.96 million the year before and has more than doubled from £942k the year before that. 

In addition, large sums continue to be diverted from the operation of the railway to shareholders. Between July 2014 and June 2015, £36.7 million was paid out to shareholders in dividends, up from £34.7 million the year before. This is money that the creaking network cannot afford to lose.

The revelations come as the RMT is set to be joined by French railway workers in a lobby of the offices of the other co-owner of GTR, Keolis, which is in turn owned by French state railways. That lobby will take place on Wednesday 15^th June at the HQ building at 2pm on the Euston Road.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:

“It is truly shocking that part of the bonuses paid by the British passenger to the bosses of GTR is down to their “successful mobilisation” of the current franchise. Commuters paying up to £5000 a year for these failing service will be rightly furious. These bonuses are truly money for old rope.

“RMT has revealed that GTR are already being allowed to increase cancellations by a third to 32,000 under its new contract with the Government and now we find that the top brass at this basket-case franchise are on a one way ticket to the bank as well.

“This situation is a national disgrace and on Wednesday RMT will be at the company HQ in central London demanding an end to the attack on the guards, safety and other front-line staff and the ending of the GTR debacle.”