LOCKED-out Gate Gourmet workers are inviting all their supporters to join them on their six-month anniversary picket on the hill at the Beacon Roundabout, Beacon Road, near Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 between 1.30 and 2.30 on Friday.
Parmjeet Sidhu said yesterday: ‘We are fed up with the union leaders saying they will not pay us hardship money. We are already under too much pressure, and now this.
‘My request to other union members is to please do us a favour over this matter. Ask the TGWU leaders why they are treating us like this.
‘We are not slaves, we are fighting for our rights and for our children’s rights. We can’t leave them to slavery.’
Gate Gourmet workers TGWU Branch Secretary Jarnail Singh said: ‘I’m standing with my members who are outside.
‘The union leaders and the company are working against us. The union leaders try to split the workers.
‘Tony Woodley (TGWU General Secretary) says there is no more hardship fund for us.
‘But we need back-up from the union. We are members of the T&G and we pay our subs.
‘The union solicitor is going to see us individually, one by one, at the end of this month, to discuss our employment tribunal cases.’
Mrs Mohinder Virk was out in Hounslow High Street on Saturday campaigning for the locked-out workers’ six-month anniversary picket this Friday 10 February.
She said: ‘We are getting so much support. People are very angry with Woodley. He is not acting fairly for the Gate Gourmet locked-out workers, he is acting for the company.
‘I have been selected for compulsory redundancy because I had to have time off for a major operation.
‘It is a terrible trick. Woodley agreed to this. It is very wrong that he has signed a deal choosing people for compulsory redundancy.
‘And now he has cut off our hardship payments. How are we going to pay our bills?
‘But we can’t give up. We have to keep fighting and we absolutely are going to keep fighting.’
On Hounslow High Street British Airways engineer and TGWU member Gagja Singh told News Line: ‘What happened to the Gate Gourmet workers could easily happen to us.
‘I will come to their anniversary picket on Friday and I will publicise it with my friends at work.
‘I am shocked and angry at the way the union is behaving. These members must be supported in every way, including financially, until they win.’
TGWU Chairman for Travel London West Bus workers, Jagi Nadgama, said: ‘We also have experienced the T&G leadership not helping us as it should. We have had members unfairly dismissed and not helped properly.
‘There are more and more issues arising every day now. It is fundamental that the union must continue paying hardship payments to these locked-out members.
‘We have raised a collection for the Gate Gourmet struggle already and I will make sure we raise another one now. These members must not be starved into submission.’