By Alan Porter
Under a deal negotiated by the TGWU — and announced to the press before consulting its members — just 187 of 713 workers sacked by Gate Gourmet the airline catering company based at Heathrow, back in August will be reinstated.
382 are set to accept voluntary redundancy, and 144 to suffer compulsory redundancy. The 144 include seven workers, two of them stewards, whom the company to as the most militant union activists.
This deal was accepted by the vast majority of the workers at a mass meeting. Many workers will feel vindicated in their action — some workers have been reinstated and the union remains at the company, though without its activists.
But many of those Gate Gourmet workers, especially those who have lost their jobs, will feel bitter. This deal is a defeat — very many workers have lost their jobs and more could have been done to save them. The deal will have long-term knock-on effects.
The TGWU deal will encourage bosses in further attacks on workers in the industry. On Monday 3 October Xavier Gourmet locked out 200 workers in Heston near Heathrow. The company supplies deserts and sweets to airline catering companies including Gate Gourmet. This non-union firm owes its workers money, and looks set to make them redundant.
The deal will give a green light to British Airways bosses, who have put “under investigation” three TGWU stewards at BA involved in solidarity strike action in August.
BA bosses are also looking forward to “restructuring” (i.e. cuts) when the company move to Terminal 5 at Heathrow. They will feel in a stronger position now. The new BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh, despite conciliatory noises, looks set to provoke a number of disputes in the short to medium term. Job losses are on the cards for call centre staff, check in staff and baggage handlers.
BA is rumoured to be planning to sting the union for “compensation” for the solidarity action. If they can present the TGWU with a £40 million bill, it will be a serious attempt to bankrupt the union.
The compensation claim would be based on arguing that TGWU general secretary Tony Woodley ordered the walkouts — one union rep was apparently offered £350,000 to retail that fiction to one of the bourgeois papers.
So the deal is certainly not the “victory” proclaimed by union official Len McClusky.
The union officials’ line is that they wanted to avoid a situation like the Liverpool dockers dispute of the 1990s, when 500 workers were locked out, a replacement workforce was brought in, a long and bitter dispute followed and the dockers lost everything.
But as with the Liverpool dockers, public sympathy for the Gate Gourmet workers was huge. Just as with the Liverpool dockers’ dispute, in the Gate Gourmet dispute solidarity action could have won a better outcome. And the Gate Gourmet workers unlike the Liverpool dockers had many thousands of natural allies working very close to them, workers who could have been organised in solidarity. Further action, not even necessarily illegal walkouts could have been organised and it is a scandal why it was not.
While Tony Woodley was able to win Labour conference to a position in support of legalising limited “secondary strike action”, he would not call for British Airways workers to take further solidarity strike action — perhaps through organising ballots on disputes “directly” of their own.
The TGWU’s timid approach cautious approach was in stark contrast to the Gate Gourmet bosses’. The Mirror reported that provoking the initial strike was part of a 15-week grand plan to put an end to union militancy, while replacing workers with low-paid agency staff. Their cynical plot was meant to save £6.5 million a year. Given that the document revealing the plan was drafted a year ago, it is clear that the bosses are far better organised to attack the workers than the union was to defend them.
Why did the union evade its responsibility is to defend its members? And what will the unions do now to defend the BA stewards who were involved in the illegal strike in sympathy with Gate Gourmet on August 10-11 and could still be victimised? The three are now “under investigation” by the company, but have not yet been disciplined.
Just to call on the Labour Party to legalise solidarity strikes and not to organise them in the midst of a high-profile dispute, shows real weakness. When BA workers did take action in support of Gate Gourmet, it immediately led to BA demanding that Gate Gourmet sort out the dispute and forced Gate Gourmet bosses to negotiate.
This is a time of weakness for trade unionism in Britain — the sharp decline in membership of recent decades has been halted, but not reversed, not even in a period of big expansion in public sector employment.
But retreats like the TGWU’s just encourage the bosses to come after us harder and faster. it is vital to defend the TGWU against BA’s legal moves — but also to reverse the retreat. Otherwise, why should sceptical workers believe that there’s any point joining a union.
The Gate Gourmet settlement is not a matter of retrieving a few concessions out of unavoidable defeat. At the time of the deal, Gate Gourmet’s scab labour was still unable to supply BA with airline meals for a big proportion of its flights.
If that solidarity strike had been continued... if the TGWU had organised effective solidarity action by balloting other groups of workers at Heathrow on their own issues of pay and conditions... if other unions at Heathrow had done the same... if, on the basis of that action, the British unions had appeal for solidarity to airline and airport unions worldwide... if the TGWU had responded to BA’s investigation of three striking baggage-handlers by immediately balloting for action... if, in short, the unions had a leadership willing to fight, then the Gate Gourmet workers would have won, and a big blow would have been struck against the whole global-capitalist policy of outsourcing, contracting-out, casualisation, and union-busting.
