BA Finally Able To Resume Service After Wildcat Strike
ANN REAL TIME NEWS: 1555 EDT -- British Airways began a
resumption of service Friday night, after striking baggage-handlers
began returning to work. But authorities said it would be several
days before the international traffic jam caused by the wildcat job
action could be resolved.
A wildcat baggage-handlers' strike has grounded British Airways
flights at London's Heathrow Airport, stranding some 70,000
passengers at the terminal since Wednesday.
"We have been here since 0530 BST and we are just waiting to see
what's coming next and no one seems to really know anything," BA
passenger Chuck Weinstein told the BBC.
The strike has also affected Qantas, Sri Lankan Air, Einnair, GB
and British Mediterranian flights, since BA ground crews also
handle aircraft from those carriers.
The chaos grew out of a dispute at airport caterer Gate Gourmet.
Wednesday morning, the company brought in 130 temporary kitchen
workers to help out during travel peaks. About 350 workers -- many
under threat of being laid off -- found that so bitterly ironic
that they walked off the job, according to local media reports.
Another 150 staffers who showed up for the afternoon shift were
given the boot when they apparently failed to show up according to
an ultimatum issued by a Gate Gourmet manager.
Thursday afternoon, London-time, British Airways
baggage-handlers, cargo workers and loaders walked off the job in
sympathy with the Gate Gourmet workers. The dominoes started
falling as flight after flight after flight was canceled.
"The action being taken by British Airways staff is unofficial
action and the union cannot support it," a spokesman for the
Transport and General Workers Union told the BBC. "The union is
doing all it can to get people back to work."
Gate Gourmet Director Richard Wells took no responsibility for
the BA strike, denying that his treatment of catering staffers had
anything to do with the baggage-handlers' walk-off.
"What is happening here today is not about Gate Gourmet staff,
it's the fact that BA staff are not working. They are taking
unofficial action," he told the BBC.
But BA CEO Rod Eddington saw the dispute in a much different
light.
"It is a huge disappointment to us that we have become embroiled
in someone else's dispute," he said in an interview British
Broadcasting.
Gate Gourmet says it will not rehire the fired workers. The
global catering company, which employs about 22,000 around the
world, has faced tough financial times since a lot of airlines
stopped serving meals after 9/11. Union leaders said they're
calling in the lawyers over what they believe were illegal firings
on the part of management.
In the meantime, British Airways is losing about $17 million a
day in the wildcat strike, not to mention the compensation it'll
have to pay to stranded passengers. It could take several days
after the workers return before BA can right itself.