THE Gate Gourmet mass picket at Heathrow airport was visited yesterday by RMT general secretary Bob Crow, along with a number of RMT executive members and officers.
Crow told the pickets: ‘Our belief is that all those working for the same company should take action at the same time.
‘However, we are not here to tell your union what to do. Your message to the people of the UK is dynamite and an inspiration to the whole of the trade union movement.’
Crow later told News Line: ‘Whether the action was official or unofficial is not the issue.
‘The question is whether it was effective and it was.
‘At the TUC next week this has got to be the central issue. The whole question is whether the trade unions have the right to exist.’
Earlier striker B Singh told News Line: ‘There is a struggle going on at the moment. We are determined to get our jobs back. We remember the first words that Woodley and Gold told us. They said that their first job was to get us all back together.
‘But now they have supported the sending of the letter for compensation and people are shocked. It is painful how they changed their position.
‘The company wants to break our unity and we can’t understand this dual policy from the union leaders.’
RMT shop steward for Arnos Grove Piccadilly line, Dean O’ Hanlon said: ‘This is such an obvious injustice and an attack on the whole of the trade union movement.
‘The whole TUC must respond to this attack, ideally industrially.
‘The sympathy action was an inspiration. It was successful and it brought the bosses to the table. Reinstatement has to be the bottom line.’
Leeds City RMT branch officer Mansur Khan told News Line: ‘The anti-union laws should be scrapped. They are unjust laws and should be resisted and broken.’