Alex Miller
The bitter Gate Gourmet airline catering firm dispute, which led to the temporary shutting down of London's Heathrow Airport last month, shows no sign of being quickly resolved.
On September 2, Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, accused the company of trying to renegotiate redundancy terms for the 1400 workers still employed by the company.
The TGWU website announced on August 26: "After marathon talks between top union negotiators and the Gate Gourmet team a framework agreement over redundancies at the Heathrow airline catering company was agreed on August 25. Everyone, whether sacked in the canteen or the car park on the infamous August 10 or still at work at the controversial caterer, will be asked if they want to stay or go. Then more talks will take place."
On August 28, BBC News Online explained that the workers were being offered two-weeks' wages for every year they had been employed at the company. Although this is twice the statutory minimum payment for redundancy, it doesn't amount to much for workers living in London on £12,000 per year.
Woodley also expressed anger at the company's refusal to reinstate 200 employees it sacked on August 10. The company has refused to reinstate them on the grounds that the mostly middle-aged South Asian women workers are "militants".
There is evidence that the company deliberately provoked these workers into taking strike action, as it would be cheaper to sack them than to pay out redundancy money (see report in GLW #639).
British Airways, which outsourced its in-flight catering operation to Gate Gourmet in 1997, has been putting pressure on the catering firm to resolve the dispute. The August 27 British Guardian reported that "BA has offered the company an improved contract with more cash to provide in-flight passenger meals — but only if the company settles its dispute with the TGWU".
The sacked workers have been holding a permanent protest rally outside the Gate Gourmet site since the beginning of the dispute. The August 27 Guardian reported that the "atmosphere among the protesters was cheerful and unabashed, despite the fact that every Gate Gourmet lorry, travelling past at 30mph, had a small security van driving alongside with a video camera trained on the picket".
From Green Left Weekly, September 7, 2005.
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