Alex Miller
Strike action by 1000 British Airways baggage handlers and ground staff brought BA flights at London's Heathrow Airport to a standstill on August 11. The BA staff walked off the job in support of 675 workers who had been summarily sacked on August 10 by the catering company that services BA, Gate Gourmet. Overall, 700 flights were cancelled, stranding more than 100,000 passengers. The strike is expected to cost BA £40 million.
Writing in the August 16 London Guardian, Tony Woodley, the general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union (which represents both the Gate Gourmet workers and BA staff) argued: "As revealed in a leaked report [in the Daily Mirror] yesterday, Gate Gourmet secretly planned a year ago to get rid of its unionised workforce. A scheme to provoke employees into a strike was hatched, on the principle that sacking is cheaper than redundancy payments.
"One of the company's directors established a labour subcontracting firm to supply a cheaper workforce. Workers saw their jobs dispatched by a megaphone announcement. Those off sick and on holiday were also fired."
The August 13 Socialist Worker quoted Mr Dhillon, the Gate Gourmet workers' union convener, as saying: "We were not on strike when we were sacked. All we were doing was trying to hold a meeting to discuss management's plans to bring in agency staff."
According to the August 16 Morning Star, "TGWU sources revealed that, although the dramatic stories had infuriated Gate Gourmet bosses during talks with the union on August 15, key allegations had not been denied outright by the firm".
Although BA has denied any responsibility for the Gate Gourmet dispute, Woodley noted in the Guardian: "Gate Gourmet was BA's in-house catering arm until it was sold off in 1997. BA has since used its muscle to attempt to impose cuts on the contractor, which it could never have contemplated when it ran the business itself.
"It has sought a £50m-plus reduction in catering costs over the duration of the contract, with year-on-year productivity improvements of 3%. Incredibly, the contract makes no allowance for even the most modest inflation-linked increase in wages. And this from a company now making record profits."
The August 17 Guardian reported that talks between the TGWU and Gate Gourmet about the possible reinstatement of the 675 catering workers broke down on August 16.
[Visit <http://www.labourstart.org/gategourmet> to send a message to the company demanding that it talk to the union and reinstate the sacked workers immediately.]
From Green Left Weekly, August 24, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.