‘Next Friday will be six months since we were locked out on August 10th 2005’, locked out Gate Gourmet worker Lakhinder Saran told News Line yesterday.
She added: ‘We are calling on all our colleagues and supporters to join us on the picket line from 1.30pm till 2.30pm on that day.’
The daily picket is on the hill at the Beacon Roundabout, Beacon Rd near Heathrow Airport Terminal 4.
It has continued ever since the airline catering company sacked the approximately 800 Transport and General Workers Union members on 10 August.
The locked out workers are refusing to accept the Compromise Agreement which the TGWU leadership signed with the company which agrees to hundreds of compulsory and ‘voluntary’ redundancies and massive cuts in conditions for those offered ‘re-engagement’.
A group of the locked out workers lobbied the TGWU national executive at the union’s HQ in London on Thursday demanding restoration of hardship payments and that the dispute be made official.
Lakhinder, commenting on the lobby, said: ‘We are not going to accept what Tony Woodley (TGWU General Secretary) said to us yesterday – that the dispute is over and there will be no more hardship payments for us.
‘How can it be over when we haven’t signed the deal and won’t sign it, and are still fighting for our rights and reinstatement to our jobs on our old terms and conditions.
‘What the union leaders are doing is not right. Woodley said that hardship payments would only be made to people who have signed the deal.
‘But people who haven’t signed the deal are entitled to hardship money and union support until the struggle is over.
‘When TGWU members hear about what is going on they are very angry and say they will fight for us.
‘We will not be put off by Woodley. We are TGWU members and we are taking our struggle forward.
‘We are very confident of winning our fight.’
Locked out worker Mrs Raj Sahdev added: ‘Today I received a letter from the job centre saying I will receive nothing from them. And with the union saying we will get no more hardship payment how are we going to live?
‘But we will still fight on and we won’t give up.’
Greenford Bus Garage TGWU Branch Secretary Abdul Chughti told News Line yesterday: ‘We have to support these workers in their struggle.
‘I want to know what is going on, what about the 144 people who have been made compulsorily redundant and are not going to sign the deal. The union must change its position.
‘It has to look after these members. I tried to contact the regional office yesterday to find out why the union has stopped the hardship payments but nobody got back to me. I will try again today.’