2023-06-13 01:29:11
Security guards at London’s Heathrow airport are threatening a strike this summer over “despicable” pay levels. Last week, the Unite union announced a long series of strike days which was to start on June 24 and last throughout the summer at Heathrow, at the height of the summer holidays.
The employees concerned had rejected an offer of a “below inflation” increase of 10.1%” while the “retail price index” or RPI, a measure of inflation used in many areas, is “currently at 11 .4%, according to Unite. The union added that the average remuneration of airport employees had “fallen by 24% since 2017 in real terms”, namely excluding inflation, while “the remuneration of general manager John Holland-Kaye” between 2020 and 2021 had gone from 800,000 pounds per year to 1.5 million pounds.
The strike which was originally due to start on the weekend of June 24 was finally postponed after a new salary offer from London airport. The proposal includes a 10% increase retroactive from January 1, which will rise to 11.5% from October, among others, according to a statement from Unite. “It’s a good compromise for employees, giving them two years of pay increases above inflation, in addition to other in-kind benefits,” the airport said in a separate statement.
The first strikes repelled
Unite reported that “the first summer strikes at Heathrow Airport, involving more than 2,000 security officers, have been pushed back”. Members of unions representing security guards are now called upon to ratify the proposal from Tuesday until June 23, and in the meantime “the first weekend of strikes has been called off”, the statement said. Heathrow which welcomes this decision. The airport stresses that in case the deal is rejected, it has “contingency plans for the summer”. “We do not anticipate any flight cancellations if more strikes were to take place,” he said.
At Easter, the airport had already experienced a strike by some 1,400 security guards for ten days in the middle of school holidays, after the failure of discussions. Heathrow had previously suffered, in the spring of last year and then during the summer holidays, from strikes and a shortage of staff which had resulted in endless queues, delays and problems with baggage handling. and cancellations.
Strikes have been increasing for about a year in the United Kingdom, particularly in rail or airport services, education, health, logistics and among civil servants, to demand better wages in a context of very high inflation.
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