19 November 2025
RMT Press Office:
Tube union RMT, will demonstrate outside City Hall tomorrow calling on the Mayor and Transport for London to stop the re-tendering of the London Underground cleaning contract and bring the workforce back in-house.
More than 2,000 cleaners working across London Underground and the wider TfL estate are outsourced and denied the basic standards that directly employed staff receive.
Cleaners working for private contractors receive no company sick pay and only the statutory minimum pension, despite carrying out essential frontline work that keeps the network safe and operational every day.
RMT survey evidence shows the scale of hardship among outsourced cleaners, with over 80% struggling to make ends meet and between 80% and 90% worrying about their bills every month, fearing for their retirement and feeling pressure to work when sick. 88% of ABM cleaners believe passengers would receive a better service if cleaning was brought in-house, and 80% of LU station managers and depot staff agree that insourcing would improve standards.
Despite this clear evidence, TfL is pressing ahead with a new outsourced contract.
RMT understands the bidders are ABM and Mitie, two outsourcing giants with long records of extracting profits and not treating workers properly.
RMT General Secretary Eddie Dempsey said:
“London Underground cleaners keep our city moving every single day, yet they remain denied sick pay, stuck on poverty pensions and outsourced to companies whose priority is extracting profit, not providing a public service.
“This demonstration at City Hall will show the depth of anger about this injustice.
"While millions of pounds are siphoned off in dividends and even funnelled offshore, cleaners are left worrying about their bills and feeling pressure to work when they are unwell.
“The Mayor says he supports trade unions, and the Labour government has promised the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation. It is time to turn those commitments into action.
“TfL must halt this retendering process and bring these cleaners back in-house where they belong.”
END
Notes:
Demonstration details:
Thursday 20 November, 8am
Outside City Hall, Kamal Chunchie Way, E16 1ZE
Nearest stations: Canning Town (Jubilee), Custom House (Elizabeth Line), Royal Victoria (DLR)
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ABM Facility Services UK, which currently holds the Tube cleaning contract, paid out a £30.4 million dividend last year, including £20 million routed to a Bermuda-based company, ABM International Ltd. ABM has increased its profits on the TfL contract in part by cutting cleaning staff and intensifying workloads on those remaining. TfL payments account for around 40% of ABM’s UK income. Between 2019 and 2024, TfL paid ABM between £65 million and £84 million a year. Over the same period ABM’s UK turnover rose from £125 million to £203 million, and gross profits increased from £8.2 million to £21.2 million. ABM’s US parent company has revenues exceeding £6 billion and paid out $56 million in dividends last year to shareholders including BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and Macquarie.
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Mitie, the other bidder, has a turnover of £4.5 billion and has paid out £290 million in dividends since 2014. It has spent £148 million on share buybacks in just the last two years. Both firms have multiple infringements recorded on the Good Jobs First Violation Tracker.
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Tagged with: RMT, Eddie Dempsey, Tube, London Underground, Cleaners, ABM
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