Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Gate Gourmet Demo - Downing Street - Tuesday!

Dan | 24.10.2005 13:13 | Gender | Repression | Workers' Movements | London | Oxford

STATEMENT FROM GATE
GOURMET WOMEN WORKERS
WE DEMAND JUSTICE AND RESPECT AS WOMEN AND AS
WORKERS!

We, the women workers sacked by Gate Gourmet, urge you to publicise
our experiences at the hands of the brutal management of this
multinational corporation and their utter disregard for our basic
rights and dignity. We would also like to remind you that our struggle
continues, and we need your support.

Gate Gourmet is the world's largest supplier of in-flight meals and
operates in over 29 countries. Internationally, the company has been
making profits of £1.05bn and has assets of £15 billion. In Britain,
Asian women form the majority of the workforce, many of us - mothers
and grandmothers are the sole wage earners for our families. Our wages
are on average between £6.00 and £7.00 an hour. We had been struggling
for one year to get the positions of those of us who were employed on
a temporary basis regularised.

The management told us in January 2005 that they were planning to make
670 people redundant because they were surplus workers and
negotiations had been going on over this between our union, the TGWU,
and the management.

Despite the management's claims that they had surplus workers, on 9
August this year we were told that 130 agency workers were to be
employed from the next day onwards. When we came to work at 6am the
next morning, we found that the management people were all already
there (normally they come in at 9am). At 9 am agency workers were
brought to the wash- up department. We stopped working. Our shop
stewards were on that day involved in a negotiation meeting with
management, but those that were at work, and in some departments the
managers themselves, told us to go to the canteen for a meeting. When
we got there we were told by the management that we had five minutes
to go back to work otherwise we would be dismissed. We said we wanted
to speak to our union representatives. After five minutes the
management came and threw letters on to the tables at which we were
sitting. They were letters of dismissal already translated into five
languages Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati and English obviously they
had been prepared in advance.

At this point we realised that an estimated two hundred and fifty
security guards and armed police, including a van load with police
dogs had entered the premises. As soon as we were told that we were
dismissed, the doors of the canteen were locked and no one was
allowed to leave. We were told to surrender our ID cards and locker
keys but we refused and said we wanted to see our union officials.
However we were not allowed to meet these officials although we were
aware that they were in the car park outside. We were not allowed any
food or water or access to toilets for six hours. Some of us including
those who were pregnant and older women had no choice but to use a
bin from the canteen as a toilet.

At 2.30pm we were surrounded by police and security guards who stood
linking arms. Several of us were physically dragged out by security
guards leading to injuries. One of us, Ms Benti Bansal, was sitting at
a round table when she was pulled up by her shoulders by two security
guards. Her chair slipped from under her and she fell to the ground,
injuring her back and neck. She begged them to let her go but they
dragged her across the room. Later she went to hospital and was
prescribed medication. Two other women suffered panic attacks when
security guards tried to grab their ID cards and locker keys and an
ambulance had to be called, and one woman, Ms Rajpreet Dhaliwal, has
suffered long term damage and has had to have medical treatment as a
result of being prevented from using the toilet for so many hours.

Those of us who were on leave on 10 August received letters of
dismissal which were dropped through our doors by hand in the early
hours of the morning. One of us, who was on holiday at the time,
received a phone call from the management when she returned. They
asked whether she was on the side of the management or the union. She
replied that she did not know what it was all about but that she would
support her colleagues. A sacking letter was dropped through her
door at 2am.

Such physical assaults, bullying, intimidation, and attacks on our
dignity should not be acceptable in any workplace in the 21st century.
It is also not acceptable that we still do not know what our position
is - while it has been reported in the press that a deal has been
agreed, none of the workers has been given any information about who
is to be offered their jobs back, who will face compulsory redundancy
and who will be simply sacked. Currently we are being forced to try to
survive on £50 a week.

We urge you to support our struggle for justice.

JOIN US AT OUR DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE DOWNING STREET
12.00 - 3.00pm
TUESDAY 25 OCTOBER 2005
Further information on the demonstration from 0207 267 0923



Dan

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. When does the BS stop? — .
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech