‘We’ve been fighting for more than one year and we are coming close to victory. Our hearing starts next week and we are very, very confident.’
That was the message delivered by Parmjit Bains to more than 200 trade unionists and youth at the locked out Gate Gourmet workers’ rally in Southall yesterday afternoon.
Parmjit told the meeting: ‘We are fighting for our rights. We are not demanding anything else. We want our jobs back.
‘We are very, very confident we will win our fight because all workers are with us.
‘In front of the power of labour, no one can stand. Thank you all of you who are giving us support.
‘There are lots of unions giving us support.
‘Without other workers’ support we can’t win our fight. Victory is closer now, we will show the whole working class – don’t give away your rights to any management or to any union leaders.’
Harbinder Singh said: ‘I am a Gate Gourmet ex-shop steward.
‘We are still struggling for our jobs. We worked hard but still they said we are troublemakers.’
Labour MP John McDonnell said: ‘I automatically supported the Gate Gourmet workers from the start because straightforwardly it is the right thing to do.
‘If people are being subjugated in that way, thrown out of their employment, deprived of their income, it is the right thing to support their struggle for justice.’
He added that after nine years of a Labour government ‘we now have less trade union rights in this country than we did a hundred years ago.
‘That’s why I’m standing against Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership,’ he went on to say.
‘I’ll continue to support you throughout and to campaign against Gordon Brown to restore trade union rights.’
Richard Kassir, Southall and Harrow CWU, told the meeting that he had been checking the figures and found that 800 workers had been sacked, ‘not the 400 that Gate Gourmet would have you believe’.
He concluded: ‘They call you “troublemakers” – I’d like to think we’ve got a room of “troublemakers” here. So good luck to you.’
Sheila Torrance from the News Line said: ‘The working class built the trade unions by fighting.
‘It’s the strength of the working class that has been the great thing about these last fifteen months.
‘You are going to win for everybody and beat these hated employers.’
The other speakers included ex-Hounslow leader Colin Ellar, Niaz Faiz (DEFRA PCS in a personal capacity), Hengride Permal (Chagos Islander Community Association), Malkiat Bilku (ex-Hillingdon Hospital strike leader), Paul Brown (TGWU shop steward Hounslow bus garage), Nash Campbell (Young Socialists National Secretary).
There was a collection of over £300 for the Gate Gourmet locked-out workers fund.
