RMT demands that Rail Gourmet and its parent company call off redundancy threat

RAIL ‎UNION RMT today demanded that Rail Gourmet and its parent company SSP call off the redundancy threat to unspecified numbers of catering contract staff under the guise of the COVID-19 pandemic as the union reveals that the company is awash with money after soaking up taxpayer furlough cash. RMT says the scandal yet again exposes the brutal, profit-driven ‎nature of outsourcing on the railway and reinforces the call for work to be brought in-house.

‎RMT research shows that in 2018 & 2019, SSP Group made a total profit of £416m, profit from UK operations was £191m, and it paid out a total of £346m in dividends to shareholders.

The numbers show that the company was making and stockpiling huge money pre-covid but has now chosen to throw its workers under the bus rather than providing job security at a time of national crisis, highlighting again the scandal of privatisation on the railways.

RMT has also pointed out that SSP furloughed a large proportion of its staff, drawing funds from the joint HM Treasury and Bank of England Covid Corporate Financing Facility and got rent payment holiday for outlets at Network Rail managed stations – soaking up substantial public funds and benefits and yet still ploughing ahead with redundancies to keep company shareholders happy.

RMT Senior Assistant General Secretary Mick Lynch said;

“It is a national scandal that Rail Gourmet and its parent SSP is awash with stockpiled cash and instead of using that money to get their workforce through the COVID-19 crisis they are slinging their staff under the bus while ladling out huge sums to shareholders.

"Even worse they have soaked up huge sums in taxpayer support and benefits during the pandemic and now that is winding down have chosen to kick their hard-working staff in the teeth with this redundancy threat.

"The redundancies should be halted and this important rail support work should be brought in house.”

Ends

Notes for Editors

SSP Group financial table