‘BLAIR says let Israel get on with its attacks and Woodley our TGWU general secretary says nothing’, Gate Gourmet locked out worker Mussarat Saeed said yesterday.
The Gate Gourmet workers are joining today’s march in London against the Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
Speaking on their weekly picket of the TGWU Hillingdon office near Heathrow Airport yesterday, Mussarat said: ‘Every day innocent kids and women are being killed but there is no action from the union. We are marching on Saturday and we demand that our unions take action to boycott Israel and bring down Blair.’
Parmjeet Sidhu added: ‘We are also going to hand out leaflets to invite everyone to our anniversary march and rally in Southall on Sunday 20th August.’
Asha Varma spoke about the continuing refusal of the TGWU leadership to pay the locked out workers their hardship money.
She said: ‘On June 14th Patrick O’Keefe (TGWU deputy regional secretary) promised he would pay February’s hardship pay but nothing’s come. We’ve got no money coming in, no JobSeeker’s Allowance, no benefits.’
She continued to talk about the pending Employment Tribunal cases: ‘When the union officers and solicitors were advising people to sign the Compromise Agreement – bullying really – they said we should sign because our case might not even be heard.
‘I was one of those locked in the canteen with my other colleagues and Gate Gourmet applied to the Tribunal to say that our case should not be heard.
‘But last week the Tribunal ruled that our case will be heard and it won’t be long before it is heard.
‘We are full of hope that we will win, and when we win Tony Woodley should resign. He has done everything for the company – trying to make us accept the deal instead of fighting the case’.
