UK airports face baggage handlers’ strike over Christmas weekend
A BAGGAGE handlers’ strike will hit Leeds Bradford and airports across the UK this week.
Two days of strikes have been planned by Swissport workers on Friday 23 December and Saturday 24 December.
More than 1,500 check-in staff, baggage handlers and cargo crew, members of Unite, will walk out for 48 hours at 00.01am on Friday with a long-running pay dispute coming to a head.
Unite, which has Swissport members at Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Doncaster, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Gatwick Glasgow, Heathrow, Leeds/Bradford, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle, and Southampton and Stansted, said employers planned to “seriously erode” terms and conditions as part of a proposed pay deal.
Swissport has been embroiled in a pay dispute with workers over pay after 62.5% Unite members voted to reject a 4.65% pay increase deal for 2015-2017 period.
The union said this was “barely” keeping up with inflation, and said that staff were angry that detrimental changes had been made as part of the deal.
The changes include freezing overtime payments for the foreseeable future and restructuring pay, said the union.
Swissport said in a statement yesterday that numerous offers have been made which Unite refused to take to the workers.
It said that more than 6,000 staff are employed in the areas impacted by the strike action, but less than 1,200 were included in the ballot which rejected the offer by a majority of 296.
On Friday 16 December, Unite called on management to commence discussions under conciliation service Acas in a bid to avoid Christmas travel disruption.
Unite national officer for civil air transport Oliver Richardson said: “We appreciate that this is a very busy time of year at the UK’s airports and that’s why we are calling for the company to engage in constructive talks under the auspices of Acas to resolve this dispute. Unite’s door is open 24/7 for such talks.
“Our members are only taking this industrial action as a last resort in a bid to reach a fair settlement – our members have not had a pay rise since 2014.
“The dispute has been compounded by the high-handed attitude of the management in making proposals that would seriously impact the workforce’s terms and conditions, such as freezing overtime payments.”
A spokesman for Swissport said: “This is another in a series of recent examples where a minority of trade union members are acting in a cynical fashion to disrupt the travel plans of the public and attempt to hold employers to ransom, without giving thought to the long term job security of staff, and the commercial viability of employers.
“We operate in a very low margin and highly competitive sector and our overall pay and conditions already compare favourably with our competitors.
“We therefore believe the offer already made is very reasonable and would have been welcomed by the majority of our staff. We remain committed to resolving this matter as soon as possible while protecting the interests of our customers, airline passengers and ultimately our staff.”
A spokesperson from Leeds Bradford Airport said: “Our operational team is working closely with all parties to ensure minimal disruption at LBA should Swissport take any strike action.
“All Jet 2.com flights would be unaffected should the proposed strike action proceed. We advise anyone travelling with other airlines to contact them directly. Once more details are known, we will share further information.”
