lkpridgeon
Verified Rep - FastJP
Elior's staff are not SWR staff members, Elior just provided a service under contract to SWR. So in essence SWR are not making any staff redundant and have no obligations towards those Elior staff members. As the specific role no longer exists at Elior they are subsequently being made redundant subject to statutory consultation.I feel that if they (SWR) did this, then it would be tricky to actually make the Elior staff redundant, as it would be potentially breaking the rules around redundancy
Whilst not morally correct SWR would be well within their right to take up a new supplier in the future because of this. Unless the contractual break forbids this. And I don't see what the RMT Union can do to stop this as I assume SWR have a break clause in the contract that they've simply opted to take as the service is no longer a firm requirement contractually with the DfT (at least for the time being).
I'll miss the service as I was a user when the trolly did bother to turn up however I can't say I'm surprised about the news. It looks like some consultation with the public was done before making the decision however wasn't open to all. Whilst all jobs should be preserved wherever possible it's a simply one of the risks of working in the private sector (having been through multiple consultations myself in the past few years).