Report by Andy Ford, Unite member
at Heathrow airport are to begin a series of targeted strikes over a new ‘fire and hire’ policy that is aimed to slash workers’ wages. The following is the text of the Unite press release:
Workers at Heathrow Airport Ltd (HAL) are set to take targeted strike action in the dispute over plans to fire and rehire its 4,000 workers on vastly reduced pay.
Huge pay cuts
The strike action by members of Unite, the UK’s principal aviation union, will involve firefighters, engineers, campus security, baggage operations, operational and airside workers and will effectively close the airport. The workforce at HAL recorded an 85 per cent vote in favour of industrial action
The first 24-hour strike will take place on Tuesday 1 December, with a further one day stoppage on Monday 14 December. A 48-hour stoppage will take place on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 December.
Greed not need
Heathrow Airport, which has repeatedly boasted that it has cash reserves to survive for 15 months even if a single plane does not land at the airport, is trying to force workers to accept permanent pay cuts of up to £8,000 per annum (a quarter of their total pay).
Unite’s announcement of strike dates follows a decision by Heathrow to inflict even more misery on its workforce.
Brutal management
Workers are being called to one-to-one meetings over the fire and hire proposals. At the meeting workers are given four options: to accept the terms of the new contract with a lump sum payment, a phased buy down over two years of the new contract, voluntary severance, or resignation/termination of their contract.
HAL has unilaterally told the 4,000 strong workforce that they will have just 24 hours to make a decision.
Legal concerns
In a further new low for HAL’s management, workers are being told that if they try to utilise their legal right to sign a new contract under protest it will be classed as a refusal and the worker will lose their job.
The way in which workers are being treated is likely to greatly worsen the epidemic of mental and physical ill health which is detrimentally affecting workers at the airport.
Reduced wages
Unite regional coordinating officer Wayne King said: “Workers are taking strike action as a direct result of Heathrow Airport’s brutal proposals to fire and rehire them on greatly reduced wages.
“The airport is using the Covid-19 pandemic as a smokescreen to permanently cut workers’ pay.
“Unite has put forward several alternative suggestions to reduce staffing costs on a temporary basis, all of which have been summarily rejected by management.
“The way that workers, who are already suffering extreme levels of stress and anxiety, are being treated by HAL’s management, demonstrates that they have apparently learned all their skills of tact and diplomacy from Donald Trump.
“These decisions will turn Heathrow from one of the most successful airports in the world into a workplace run on bullying and intimidation, it’s disgraceful. In the midst of a global pandemic no key worker should be forced to take such deep pay cuts by an employer that claims to have billions in reserves.
“The government should start to take a serious look at how our country’s largest airport is being run and financed.
“Management are using the vilest form of bullyboy tactics of fear and intimidation and are trying to force workers virtually overnight to accept new contracts which force them and their families into poverty.
“The long-term damage to morale at the airport is indescribable, and we have to question if productivity levels will ever recover.
“This strike action will undoubtedly cause a great deal of disruption to passengers and cargo deliveries using the airport but this is purely a result of the company’s appalling treatment of workers.
“Unite is fully prepared to take part in talks to resolve this dispute anytime, anyplace and anywhere.”
[Andy Ford adds: This is all happening through “Dismiss and Re-engage” (Section 188 of Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992). This allows employers to terminate the employment contracts for ‘Some Other Substantial Reason’ and then immediately offers work on new terms, and by doing so they do not need to pay redundancy.
It ought to be illegal, as it contradicts even the capitalist law of contract (ie an agreement binding on both parties) but it isn’t. The tragedy here is that while the Labour leadership should be raising the roof and demanding a change in the law to protect the livelihoods of workers, almost nothing is coming out of Keir Starmer’s office except one lukewarm statement. It is a tragedy that while the overwhelming majority of the Labour Party membership are indignant about cuts in living standards like this, the only indignation that the Labour leadership displays is towards the Party membership. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.]
December 1, 2020
