Background

• What happened
• The workers' response
• Why?
• Why Blue Arrow?

What happened

On Wednesday, August 10th, 2005, Gate Gourmet sacked 670 workers employed at Heathrow. Fellow workers reporting for duty on Thursday 11th August were faced with the ultimatum of signing a new contract which would slash pay and conditions or face the sack. Workers were sacked by megaphone on the spot, and it became clear that people on holiday or even in hospital on sick leave had also been sacked.

It was later revealed that management had planned to provoke a confrontation and sack workers for almost a year. A plan costing £2.5 million was expected to save the company £6.5 million a year. Gate Gourmet deliberately provoked a confrontation to attack pay and conditions.

The workers' response

The Gate Gourmet workers themselves immediately began picketing both Heathrow airport and Gate Gourmet and called for solidarity from other workers. Around a thousand British Airways staff answered and went on unofficial strike at Heathrow airport. Gate Gourmet was forced back to the negotiating table, but is still stalling and issuing threats.

Why?

Gate Gourmet claim that the company must cut costs to survive, they claim that the sacked workers are endangering all jobs by 'making trouble' and refusing to cooperate. Their own behaviour proves this is rubbish. They provoked the confrontation, they refused to negotiate - only solidarity action from other workers forced them back to the table. The confrontation was provoked by bringing in workers from temp agencies, on lower pay, with fewer rights and with no protection against arbitrary sackings.

The factory is now being run by temporary workers, who are far easier for management to exploit and intimidate. The sacked workers earned between £12,000 and £16,000 a year, and this in London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, and yet even this was not low enough for Gate Gourmet who seek to use casual workers as an excuse to pay poverty wages and avoid any responsibility for pensions or sick pay.

Why Blue Arrow?

Blue Arrow are providing many of the temps who are being used to attack pay and conditions at Gate Gourmet. These are people on very low pay, with very few rights who are being put in a situation where simply by trying to survive they are complicit in an attack on other workers. It's not their fault, it's the fault of the cynical companies that manipulate and exploit people for their own profit.