GATE Gourmet locked-out workers were accused by TGWU General Secretary Tony Woodley in his speech to delegates on the opening day of their union’s biennial conference in Brighton on Monday afternoon of being ‘vulnerable workers’ who had been taken advantage of by the ‘ultra-left’.
After refusing to talk to them outside the conference, and running away from them early in the morning, Woodley used his speech to insult the Gate Gourmet locked-out workers and accused them of going outside the union for support in their struggle against the company he originally termed ‘Gangster Capitalists’.
In the section of his speech to the biennial delegate conference (BDC) 2007, sub-titled ‘fighting back the T&G tradition’, Woodley said: ‘And let’s not pretend for a second that all is well in the world of work.
‘Shortly after our last BDC we had the scandal of the Gate Gourmet dispute, you saw the demonstration here this morning.
‘Hundreds of vulnerable, low-paid women workers sacked by megaphone by a private equity bandit, so he could replace them with still cheaper labour.
‘I’m proud that this union stood up for its members there and we found the means to force Gate Gourmet to come back to the negotiating table and deliver some measure of justice for our members.
‘But let us pay tribute to the real heroes, our senior stewards. Please welcome shop stewards Mrs Atwal and Mr Dhillon,’ he said as he invited the pair to stand for a round of applause.
Woodley continued: ‘That’s fighting back trade unionism. It worked. 716 sacked members back at work or having agreed to accept over £3.25 million in compensation. As Steve Hart said earlier, we’ve doubled our membership at Gate Gourmet.
‘But these vulnerable workers are often exploited by the ultra-left, who tell them to go outside the union solicitors and have private solicitors. I don’t like that use by ultra-leftism of people who are vulnerable.
‘If there was a chance to get all of them back we would have.
‘The leaflet said get all our people back – don’t you think we tried. You don’t have to ask for your general secretary to be sacked, because if I felt I’d let these workers down, I’d resign.
‘I couldn’t look myself in the face.
‘But we’ve still 22 members who we’re representing and some of them ask a simple question: “why can’t I have my job back? why can’t you ballot for a strike?”
‘It sickens me when I know they’re right; when I know they deserve justice, but, even today, after 10 years of a Labour government, the anti-trade union laws stop us from giving our members the settlement they’re entitled to have – it sickens me!’
In fact Woodley and Gold negotiated a compromise agreement which accepted 144 compulsory redundancies and hundreds of other sackings.
They also accepted that no body would receive a penny of compensation until everybody signed the Compromise Agreement.
The compromise agreement stipulated that no worker would take legal action either through the courts or through Employment Tribunals against Gate Gourmet.
The TGWU never intended to take any employment tribunal cases!
It worked might and main to get every worker to sign the Compromise Agreement.
Workers feared that with the closing date for the tribunal approaching they would lose their right to a tribunal.
That is why a number of workers went to private solicitors.
It was because they feared that the union was not going to represent them. This view was strengthened when a few days before the closing date the union solicitors stated that they would only represent those sacked workers that they considered stood a chance of winning.
In fact the union solicitors were forced by the anger of the workers to put in 700 cases for the employment tribunal on the last day before the closing date for the tribunal!
It was in fact the Woodley leadership of the union that was responsible for a number of workers taking out cases with private solicitors and paying for that ‘service’ despite the fact that they were penniless. They did it because the union leaders had given them reason not to trust them!
It is no accident that Mr Dhillon, the ex-convenor, is Woodley’s hero.
While working hard to get every worker to sign the compromise agreement Dhillon did not sign. He put his case before the employment tribunal.
This was an act of treachery and betrayal.
It is worthwhile mentioning that the Employment Tribunal in its verdict found that this hero and Brendan Gold were responsible for the over 700 workers getting the sack.
When the management allowed Dhillon into the plant on August 10th he brought in with him an instruction from Gold that the workers would not be leaving the canteen until the threat to dismiss them was withdrawn.
Gate Gourmet then sacked all of the workers in the canteen and went on to sack many hundreds more.
The Tribunal verdict states in clause 54 of Mr Dhillon: ‘He had followed the advice given to him by Mr Gold the National Secretary which was to seek a withdrawal of the threat of dismissal before the staff returned to work. He was present in the canteen at the time of the dismissals.’
It adds in clause 75: ‘What none of the tribunal could understand is why having heard how the respondent viewed this congregation of employees Mr Dhillon did not address the entire group to advise them that whatever their concerns that this was a matter that the union had been due to consider at 10am that morning including what if any industrial action was appropriate and that it should be left to the union executive to consider and that they should return to work.
‘Had he done so none of these problems would be before this tribunal.’
Gold and Dhillon organised the dispute and got 700 people sacked, according to the tribunal verdict, and then Gold and Woodley declared it to be unofficial and illegal and dumped it, refusing to make it official.
Not very heroic conduct all round, except if you go in for ultra left heroics, which you disown afterwards as did Woodley and Gold. They exercised their power and told workers not to return to work, then refused to take any responsibility for that action, declaring that the gathering had been illegal, when they refused to make the dispute official!
Woodley declares that he was sickened by what happened, and did everything in he could to get everybody returned to work.
What a cynic.
After he made his great revolutionary, but somewhat ultra-left ‘jail me now’ speech at the TUC Congress many were expecting that at least the TUC and Woodley would call a massive legal national demonstration to drive the venture capitalists back as the Irish TUC did over Irish Ferries.
Nothing of the sort, Woodley and the TUC leader Barber, two weeks after that great speech, drew up and agreed the Compromise Agreement, selling out the workers.
The boast that he brought Gate Gourmet to the negotiating table is empty and false, since he negotiated hundreds of sackings and the acceptance of its slave- driving survival plan.
Everybody knows that what brought Gate Gourmet to negotiate was the magnificent action of the baggage handlers and the way that this undermined BA, as well as the massive and determined resistance of the Gate Gourmet workers.
Woodley should be sacked for his great betrayal of the Gate Gourmet workers.
The sacked workers have every right to be sick at his conduct and to demand that he be shown the door.
Gate Gourmet locked-out worker Parminder Brar responded to Woodley’s insulting remarks by saying: ‘The only reason some of us went to a private solicitor was that the union leaders and union solicitors said one thing and did another.
‘At the start they said we would all go back together, but then they said we should accept the Compromise Agreement which made 144 of us compulsorily redundant and which cancelled all our legal rights including the right to go to an employment tribunal.
‘It was only then some of us went to a private solicitor.’
Gurdish Sidhu said: ‘TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said this morning he helped the Gate Gourmet people, but he has not helped at all.
‘Why is Dhillon’s case going ahead to the Employment Tribunal and not mine. He told me to sign the Compromise Agreement, but he didn’t sign it. The Compromise Agreement said I was compulsorily redundant, that’s why I wouldn’t sign it.
‘Woodley wouldn’t talk to us this morning. He ran away and went in the back door.’
Satpal Sagoo said: ‘Woodley was very surprised to see us. He couldn’t get away fast enough.’
The locked-out workers also spoke disgustedly about a document distributed to delegates entitled:
‘Gate Gourmet AN HISTORIC STRUGGLE – AND A BRIGHTER FUTURE’.
It does not mention the workers who were consigned by Woodley to compulsory redundancy.
Vainly hoping the speed-ups that the union agreed under the Gate Gourmet ‘Survival Plan’ are sufficient, the pamphlet pretends British Airways did not issue an invitation last month to other inflight catering companies to tender for the BA catering contract.
It claims: ‘The company’s financial future has been stabilised and thanks to the dedication and hard-work of the workforce, its future looks brighter.’
It is really saying: Long live the survival plan and that the mass sackings saved the company. This is really sick!
Under the heading: ‘The fight goes on,’ the pamphlet quotes Woodley as saying: ‘These workers deserve the backing of the labour movement’.
Mohinder Virk said: ‘The pamphlet’s rubbish. Woodley ran from us today. When he says the fight goes on, he means the fight against us, his own members.’
Vijaya Patel said: ‘I’ve read it. It doesn’t tell things as they really happened. I wasn’t at the meeting when they said the Compromise Agreement was agreed, but it made me compulsorily redundant, so how could I sign it?
‘To read the truth of what happened to us buy our pamphlet which shows what really happened. It costs £1 and the money goes to our Dispute Fund.’
A delegation of over 30 Gate Gourmet locked-out workers went to lobby their TGWU conference on Monday.
They were very angry that half of them were not allowed in, even though they had applied for visitors passes over one month ago.
Surjit Gill said: ‘It is a shame on the union leaders that they would not let me into the conference as a visitor. We came all the way from London.’
Sacked TGWU Gate Gourmet shop steward Gurcharan Basra said: ‘This morning Pat O’Keefe (TGWU district officer) said he didn’t want to know me.
‘That is very rude. I have done nothing wrong. He knows me quite well as a shop steward and he said it in front of all these people.
‘He instructed people who didn’t have their membership cards with them to leave the building. He shouldn’t say that. We weren’t interrupting anything. We are not hooligans.’
Mrs Basra added: ‘I am disgusted by this pamphlet “Gate Gourmet a brighter future”. It is very cynical.’
The lively lobby of the conference was followed by a packed meeting in the nearby Quality Hotel at lunchtime.
It was announced at the meeting that 49 cases for racial discrimination against Gate Gourmet have been lodged at the Employment Tribunal.’
Locked-out worker Lakhinder Saran explained to the meeting that when they came to work at 6.00am on August 10, 2005, the Gate Gourmet workers found that casual workers had been brought into the plant to take on their jobs.
‘We went to the canteen as instructed by our own union officers and we were sacked at 11.00am when we were still waiting for our union officers to tell us what to do.’
She continued: ‘The company had made a plan to sack all of us – 800 altogether.
‘When the other workers at the airport heard what had happened, they came out in support and only went back when Woodley told them to.’
She added: ‘What really made us angry is that the union paid £600,000 hush money to the two BA shop stewards that were sacked at the airport to keep quiet about what happened. This has never been explained to union members.’
Lakhinder concluded: ‘Replace Woodley and Gold. We want a new leadership that fights for their members.’
Locked-out Gate Gourmet worker Jaswinder Kumar was represented at the recent Employment Tribunal by the TGWU solicitor.
He reported: ‘At our employment tribunal, we learned the real face of British justice. The tribunal decided for Gate Gourmet, which was run by the venture capitalist Texas Pacific.
‘Our tribunal was not a fair tribunal. It was biased for the venture capitalists because they are friends of the government who give money to Labour to get them elected. It ruled that we took unofficial action when we were sacked.
‘But we don’t consider that it was unofficial as our union officials were in charge of the action that was taking place and we shouldn’t have been sacked.
‘You can read all about it in our new pamphlet.
‘We also have our case for racial discrimination coming before the tribunal.
‘Our solicitors, having put in an initial claim, pulled out and refuse to fight it. But we will not keep quiet.
‘Gate Gourmet management wanted to get rid of a mainly Asian workforce and employ cheap labour eastern Europeans instead.
‘We ask all T&G delegates to raise our struggle at conference. Why did the solicitors pull out of our tribunal cases?
‘We are asking delegates to support us and demand a national demonstration in support of our struggle and all those who fight the venture capitalists today.’
The Gate Gourmet workers got great support from the meeting.
