Kevin Rowan column
Aug 29 2005 By Kevin Rowan, The Journal
No-one can have missed the ongoing high-profile Gate Gourmet dispute.
A large US multinational sacked 800 staff employed at Heathrow on the 10th of August and went on to give fellow workers reporting for work the following day a choice of new, worse, contracts or dismissal.
The company says it is losing £25m per year and needs to introduce new contracts to stem these losses, yet the management has recently awarded its members some hefty pay rises and workers earn between £12,000 and £16,000.
The Transport and General Workers Union has accused Gate of a cynical plot to provoke a dispute to allow them to dismiss the workforce and introduce new terms.
All the evidence so far seems to support that view.
Can it be right that employees can be forced onto new contracts in this way? UK law requires changes to terms and conditions of workers to be agreed between the parties. Employment is a contract.
The changes proposed were too much to bear for these already low-paid workers and the dismissals, arguably, a direct consequence of this failure to agree.
It is completely unacceptable that this breakdown in collective bargaining can so easily lead to 800 people losing their jobs.
Yet this has all occurred within the law. The one unlawful aspect has been solidarity action by employees of BA, action which the Transport and General has had to repudiate.
Unlike other EU countries "solidarity action" is not legal in the UK and those taking it risk dismissal without recourse.
So how are companies like Gate to be persuaded to act fairly?
BA have been encouraging Gate to act responsibly; there are reports that ministers have sought to persuade it to re-instate the workforce and reach agreement, all to no avail.
The employment relationship is not an equal one. Employers will always have authority over workers.
Trade unions and employment law mitigate that imbalance and make the relationship more equitable.
Situations like the one in Heathrow demonstrate that employment law is still weighted too heavily in favour of employers.
Sacking workers is a cheap option for some employers.
Despite protestations against "red tape" there is a case for making it harder than it is to sack UK workers.
Kevin Rowan is regional secretary of the Northern TUC.
