Union stand-off ends after deal with Gate Gourmet

Union stand-off ends after deal with Gate Gourmet

	Published : Tue, 27 Sep 2005 13:05 By : Phil Bateman Print this Story

LONDON: The chaos at Heathrow airport has finally come to an end with in-flight caterer Gate Gourmet and the Transport and General Workers Union reaching an agreement last night. Details will be released tomorrow only after both the parties ratify the deal.

Both the caterer and the union were in a face-off since the sacking of 670 workers in August in a dispute over restructuring. The caterer has been struggling and was prevented from going into administration by a provisional contract from BA.

In response to the sackings, 400 other workers from the catering factory had gone on strike and received support from British Airways’ ground staff who went on a 2-day sympathy strike.

The BA staff’s secondary strike action had grounded the air traffic at Heathrow airport, causing an estimated loss of £40m to the airline and leaving over 100,000 passengers stranded. Even after flights resumed BA was still unable to provide normal meals to its passengers who had to buy their food from the airport with vouchers provided by the airline.

The conflict between Gate Gourmet and the T&G union was getting nastier and threatening to take on political and racial overtones. T&G general secretary Tony Woodley had earlier accused the caterer of “shameful treatment of Asian workers – treatment that would never have been meted out to white workers.”

Several Gate Gourmet workers said they were locked in their canteen and sacked after they had gathered for a discussion during the shift. Woodley blamed such “arbitrary sacking” on severe flaws in the country’s labour laws. He demanded legislation of secondary strike action.

As a conciliatory step Gate Gourmet had offered redundancy packages to its entire staff including those sacked.

After a meeting last night, both the caterer and the union were “pleased that a way forward had been found”, according to their joint statement.

BA is the largest UK customer of the US-owned caterer.