It has just been confirmed what we already knew – that the Gate Gourmet bosses, in a well planned action, provoked a walk-out by a section of their workforce so that they could sack the entire workforce.
Prior to that action, the bosses made arrangements to bring in scabs from Eastern Europe, through another company, as contract labour.
Some of these have been trained as drivers, but all of them were to be put to work on much inferior terms and conditions that would allow the company to make several millions in extra profits annually.
The plan called for BA and BAA to be tipped off about the action.
However disaster struck, and the timetable for the action was thrown off course, but not halted, when the BA workers walked out in sympathy with the locked out Gate Gourmet workers, stopping Terminals 1 and 4 at London Airport and inflicting huge losses on BA.
With the bosses cynically screaming about the suffering that the sympathy strike was causing to airline passengers and BA, the TGWU leaders moved into action immediately to rescue the employers, by condemning the sympathy strikers and ordering them back to work.
Because of this action, the company lives to fight another day, with up to 800 workers remaining locked out and being made to picket well away from the plant by the police, who were no doubt well aware that there was scheduled to be strike breaking on a massive scale.
Yesterday, a TGWU spokesman said that the union leaders had suspected that the action was a planned provocation by the bosses.
Why then did they force the sympathy strikers back to work, and rescue the plotting and double dealing bosses, so that they could live to fight another day?
The answer is that the TGWU leaders are supporters of the Labour government, which has made Britain a paradise for the gangmasters with their low paid contract labour. As well, as at SkyChef’s, the TGWU leaders are willing to negotiate the changes that the company wants to make.
With the bosses’ plot now public property, and with workers up and down the country really angry about the way the bosses were planning to destroy an entire community, and that this could also happen to them if it is allowed to pass, the time has come for action.
Trade union action is now doubly necessary since everybody knows that with the bosses’ economy failing, every boss is watching Gate Gourmet. If it succeeds they will use the same tactic.
The TGWU leaders must now take decisive action to demonstrate to the employers and the government that no set of employers, nor the government, will be allowed to carry out this tactic.
The whole TGWU must be called out, and all the airports must be stopped. The TGWU must demand that the TUC calls out all the trade unions in a massive sympathy action, since in this case an injury to one is obviously an injury to all.
The strike breakers and strike breaking must be stopped before it becomes a way of life for the bosses.
To help the TGWU leaders take their decision, the Gate Gourmet shop stewards committee must call on London Airport workers and all of Britain’s airport workers, to stop work at once in sympathy, since in this case, an injury to one is so obviously an injury to all and a victory for the Gate Gourmet workers will be their victory as well.
