TRANSPORT and General Workers Union full-time officer Oliver Richardson told locked out Gate Gourmet workers yesterday that they would continue to receive hardship payments from the union.
The workers had previously been threatened by union officers that the cheques that they are currently expecting would be their last.
Kuldip, one of the locked out workers told News Line: ‘We went to the union office in Hillingdon today and Oliver Richardson said “why are you here? Do you want to see a solicitor?”
‘We said no we are here to find out about our cheques, he said “your cheque is going to be posted today”.
‘I said do you know how many days there are ’til Christmas and we need money.
‘If it doesn’t arrive tomorrow we won’t be able to pay it in before Christmas and we will be penniless.
‘He also said that the union is to stop paying hardship money to those who have signed the Compromise Agreement but that the rest of us will continue to receive it.’
Parmjit Bains said: ‘This is a victory for us. Before, the union leaders said this would be the last cheque.
‘Now Richardson has said we will continue to receive it, so they’ve had to back down.
‘They were saying we were against the union. We are not against the union. We are the union. We are just against the Compromise Agreement. We contribute to the T&G. My message to my colleagues is stay together, definitely we will win our victory.’
Mrs Varma added: ‘If we don’t get our cheque by Christmas it will cause us terrible problems.’
Mohinder Grewal said: ‘They said we would receive the cheque in the post tomorrow or after tomorrow.
Up ’til now we have always received our cheque by hand, if we don’t get it by Christmas we are going to be really suffering.’
Parmjit Sidhu said: ‘The union officers had been saying that the next cheque we get will be our last.
They said we are trouble makers, speaking against the T&G. It’s not true, we are not speaking against the T&G we are fighting for our rights.
‘Why did they choose us for the 144 compulsory redundancies? We are not slaves to Gate Gourmet, we have to win and the union must back us.’
