Solidarity action with sacked Gate Gourmet workers

The one in Stockport is Industrial...

I think it is a mistake in this campaign to begin to call casual workers 'scab' workers - and essentially alienate them from supporting the sacked full time employees.

This campaign has seen the successful support of full time employees in other sections of the airline industry. The next step that makes sense to me is to begin to reach out to casual workers, emphasising their exploitation and encouraging or making space for them to come forward to challenge in solidarity with the sacked workers.

You could begin to do this with a different focus - this focus should be totally set on breaking down the clients that Blue Arrow (with it's specialist catering service wing) providing temporary/casual workers to.

When you do this you begin to make links - Blue Arrow Catering provides casual workers for a number of catering contractors including:

Mitie (part of which was sold off to ISS facility Services recently)

Initial Catering Services (owned by the massive multi-national Rentokil)

Shaw Healthcare which serves care homes

Sodexho - which provides temporary catering workers for many government departments and the NHS.

Indeed, when you start to break down how temp agencies like Blue Arrow, and these contractors above which they serve, and how they have grown fat off the back of casual workers in the last few years - the buck often leads directly back to government and PPPs - partnerships between the private and public sector in the health service, in care homes, in cleaning and catering department contracts across the public sector.

So, what the T&G is not doing is looking at the catering industry as a whole, and pushing a hard-hitting critique of government's complicity in the growth of casual work, which is now having the inevitable knock-on effect to full time employee contracts. Casual contracts are coming your way soon, so solidarity with casual workers is ESSENTIAL.

The long-term fight against casual work will be weak unless the focus of campaigns such as these highlights the unscrupulous partnerships of government and multi-nationals (such as Rentokil, which are often the umbrellas of smaller contractors like Initial Catering Services).

If you go the road of vilifying casual workers as scabs you play into the hands of both government and the multi-nationals - you take the blame away from them and transpose it onto casual workers. This will crush a solidarity which is essential in the fight against casual work in my mind.

I would make your leaflets focus on the unscrupulous practice of Gate Gourmet, Blue Arrow, and indeed highlight the unscrupulous practice of other catering contractors such as Initial and Mitie. Workers for these contractors will no doubt be watching the Gate Gourmet campaign, and will relate to many of horrendous employment practices experienced by the sacked Gate Gourmet workers.

The T&G has not criticised government complicity as yet, and has not held to account Labour MPs who have jumped on the bandwagon of the Gate Gourmet workers campaign. Something similar happened here in Burnley recently with the GMB, the Labour MP for Burnley and sacked workers for Time Computers. We should begin to see the patterns and learn from them.

There are many contractor companies that are growing fat off the back of casual workers, picking up contracts at an ever increasing rate in the public sector - catering being one of the key areas. Enterprise in Leyland near Preston is a big one in the North West.

analysis paralysis?

Is anything happening on this front by libcom folks?

No, not analysis paralysis - well not on my part anyway - just quiet reflection on probably about two years of hard graft of being involved in similar organising events (the Trots prefer this kind of organisation/ and this kind of top down telling people how to organise through stands - demos - protests etc. does not necessarily work if it does not have casual workers to the fore - organising for themselves with support - I learnt much on this regard from involvement with the National Group on Homeworking, and homeworkers).

I'm thinking carefully just how effective these are in bottom up organising - making sure that casual workers are involved - I think I said in a post way back reflecting and abhorring Swerp tactics, that I prefer now to work very much in the background - building confidence and consciousness particularly amongst my local women friends - so that others begin to act for themselves - this is painstaking work JD stormtrooper - no quick results here my friend.

By the way, I like your website, I see Dr Lost is on there talking about self-defence moves - tell him from me will ya I can teach him a few self-defence moves if he likes next time he's round.

tara - titter - urr I mean gaffaw.

Hope to meet you sometime soon.

Mitch (x me deadly, in search of the 'great wotsit)

Unfortunately, everyone dies at the end of this classic noir - have you seen it Mike Hammer?