Lufthansa SkyChefs dispute

Lockout at Heathrow

David Coen

The workers, all TGWU members (as are the 30,000 or so workers at Heathrow) had two ballots before taking official strike action. On the first day a court injunction prevented them from going ahead.

On the second of four planned one-day strikes 200 were sacked - including those who were on sick leave but who refused to sign new contracts. The workers are demanding re-instatement on their previous pay and conditions. The company has hired agency workers as scabs and is looking to recruit permanent workers to keep going.

The company's video cameras film all that happens at the gate: when strikers photgraphed scabs the police threatened then with arrest for "intimidation"

The sacked workers have been lobbying LSG Lufthansa's main customers (American Airlines, Quantas and Lufthansa as well as the company's plants at Gatwick, Manchester, Paris and Germany seeking support for their action.

They have the support of the International Transport Workers Federation and have handed out leaflets outside Lufthansa's Picadilly offices.

The lockout of workers on an official dispute in defense of pay and conditions comes against the background of the departure of Peter Mandelson from the Department of Trade and Industry.

The White Paper on Competitiveness and the misnamed Fairness at Work document both demonstrate Mandelson's pro-employer stance but his going will make no difference to Blair's project even if his public preference for the bosses was a bit embarrassing for Blair.

In the name of competitiveness and with the aid of the Tories anti union laws the Labour leadership seems determined to aid the employers in every possible way, even if it means breaking Labour's connection with the organised labour movement which founded it.

Despite Blair's recent description of himself as a Gladstonian Liberal and publicly distancing himself from the unions, union leaders such as Bill Morris of the TGWU (though it is an official strike and he has appeared on the picket line) apparently believe that they can still make Blair see sense and legislate a better deal for workers.

Instead of attempting to mobilise the thousands of T&G members at Heathrow - the only way to win the dispute with an employer who has carefully prepared for this de-recognition, Morris is concentrating on secret diplomacy, lobbying Ministers and calling for the human rights of the workers to be respected.

It took very determined action, including the willingness of the Shrewsbury building workers to go to jail for breaching Heath's Industrial Relations Act, before that piece of anti union legislation was defeated

The stakes in the LSG Lufthansa dispute are high: should these workers be defeated, not just the pay and conditions of all Heathrow workers but also their right to belong to a union will be under grave threat - which is why all the employers including Blair's friend Bob Ayling of British Airways, will support LSG Lufthansa's efforts to break the union.