Guardian: Free-market buccaneers
Aug 18th 2005, 8:21 pm
#1
Guest
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Guardian: Free-market buccaneers
Comment
Free-market buccaneers
The Gate Gourmet saga lifts the lid on a business culture that freely
exploits low-paid, migrant labour
Polly Toynbee
Friday August 19, 2005
Guardian
The bitter truth is that it's over. The Gate Gourmet workers are
summarily sacked and there is nothing much they or their union can do
about it. British Airways is back in the skies, with Gate Gourmet now
providing meals assembled by a new workforce hired through the temp
agency Blue Arrow.
The temps are mainly newly arrived east Europeans and Somalis. When I
called Blue Arrow in Uxbridge to ask about the pay rate for catering
assistants, it was £6 an hour - as expected, a lower rate than that of
the sacked workers.
But you may not hear much more from the 670 sacked Gate Gourmet
workers: they have already slipped down the news agenda. They are still
on their grassy knoll above Heathrow trying to embarrass BA - but what
else can they do? The strike had its moment of glory, and its
absurdities, such as Sir William Rees-Mogg stranded on the runway for
three hours, returning to harrumph in his Times column that the scurvy
knaves should be whipped (or thereabouts). It was, he fumed, "a
violation of our human rights ... wrongful imprisonment is a criminal
offence, whether committed by an airline or a trade union ... The
Heathrow strike was the T&G versus the British people ...
legislation is needed to protect the public." Exactly what more
legislation, short of bringing back the cat, he did not say. Of the
plight of the low-paid, not a word.
The Gate Gourmet sackings may go to court eventually, but there is
little that this group of predominantly female, middle-aged Asian
workers can do. Their union is in a bind. The BA staff who walked out
in wildcat sympathy action with the women would no doubt do it again,
since these women are the BA baggage handlers' wives and mothers, and
sympathy doesn't come much stronger than that. Until BA contracted out
its catering they all worked together. But the strike action was doubly
illegal - without a ballot and secondary action. Few who remember the
1970s would want to repeal either of those laws, but what happened at
Gate Gourmet was outrageously unjust. It is not only the law that
restrains the T&G but an unwillingness to do more damage to BA,
where thousands of its members depend on the airline's precarious
success. So the union will not be calling for passenger boycotts or
seeking to trash BA's good name any further.
The self-styled world's favourite airline has already done that
perilously well for itself by contracting out a service that is vital
to its marketing success. BA's loss of £40m (and probably a lot more
in future custom) should become a business-school exemplar on how the
subcontracting culture can bring down a company. Look what happened to
hospital wards when managers lost control of cleaning. Look what
happened to school dinners, street cleaning and park maintenance when
councils were forced to contract out those services to the lowest
bidders.
The Gate Gourmet saga raises deep questions that go a long way to
explaining why Britain is a low-pay, low-skill, low-productivity
economy with a pay scale that every year drives the top and the bottom
further apart. Gate Gourmet is not an anomaly or a freak case of wild
West Texas management. It is British business's state of mind, it is
the CBI and the chambers of commerce, it is the essence of political
discourse on industry, where the only value is the short-term quick
buck in share price, where "flexibility" and outsourcing are always
good and regulation always bad.
Gate Gourmet has lifted the lid on low-pay life. Consider the
immigration aspects: Britain is one of the few countries to open its
doors immediately to eastern European workers. Home Office figures show
that most are not skilled plumbers or nurses but in minimum-wage jobs.
Other migrants are working in the black economy below the minimum wage,
while the government refuses to create a work inspectorate to root out
companies exploiting weakness and ignorance about basic working rights.
Labour rejected the EU Agency Workers Directive to give temporary staff
the same conditions, to deter Gate Gourmet behaviour.
Trade unions are decently unwilling to stir xenophobia, but Britain's
and America's enthusiasm for "liberal" migration policy springs not
from generosity to foreigners but from the other kind of "liberal"
sentiments - the free-market buccaneering way to undercut wages.
Current wage rates are inexplicable by normal economic rules: when
labour markets are tight, wages should rise - but they haven't. It is
partly cartel behaviour by supermarkets, care homes and the like, which
don't need to lift the phone to conspire with one another (which would
be illegal) to agree to hold down the rate for low-paid jobs. Many
supermarkets are short of shelf stackers and care homes are often
critically short-staffed - but they never raise the pay: foreign
workers help to fill the gaps alongside grantless students who now need
to work.
In London this is especially dysfunctional, because it has the highest
unemployment in the country, more young black men unemployed and more
poor mothers unable to work because of prohibitive childcare costs. Yet
importing labour is easier and cheaper than training up our own people
and paying them a living family wage for London.
The Financial Times castigated the rest of Europe this week for keeping
out cheap migrant labour. "Open the doors," it commanded France and
Germany. "If companies based in Europe are to compete globally they
need flexible access to labour, including migrants."
Flexible is a polite word for low pay. In service industries, this has
nothing to do with global competition. Shelves can't be stacked in
Singapore nor grannies bathed in Bombay, nor airline food packed
anywhere but Heathrow. Cheap service-sector jobs do nothing much for
the wider economy: they only provide the better-off with services that
are cheaper than the true cost. Eating in a restaurant where kitchen
staff can't survive on the pay means the worker half starves or, if
they have children, the state picks up our tab in tax-credit subsidies.
Low-paid work is the greatest growth sector, but the government should
frown on it, not encourage and subsidise it. Meanwhile manufacturing
fails for lack of German-style investment in apprenticeships and
R&D, which makes Germany Europe's great exporter. You can't
export cheap services or thrive on unskilled work.
Gate Gourmet screws down pay in very British style while FTSE company
directors pay themselves a very British 16% rise, with a typical CEO on
£2.5m. So where is the indignation? Where is the leadership that dares
even whisper a question about this growing social dislocation? People
are left to presume that there is no alternative to some malign
economic force beyond human control. The truth is that penury and greed
are political choices, not economic destiny: we can be Nordic, not
American, and we can be John Lewis, not Gate Gourmet, employers if we
choose.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists...552342,00.html
Free-market buccaneers
The Gate Gourmet saga lifts the lid on a business culture that freely
exploits low-paid, migrant labour
Polly Toynbee
Friday August 19, 2005
Guardian
The bitter truth is that it's over. The Gate Gourmet workers are
summarily sacked and there is nothing much they or their union can do
about it. British Airways is back in the skies, with Gate Gourmet now
providing meals assembled by a new workforce hired through the temp
agency Blue Arrow.
The temps are mainly newly arrived east Europeans and Somalis. When I
called Blue Arrow in Uxbridge to ask about the pay rate for catering
assistants, it was £6 an hour - as expected, a lower rate than that of
the sacked workers.
But you may not hear much more from the 670 sacked Gate Gourmet
workers: they have already slipped down the news agenda. They are still
on their grassy knoll above Heathrow trying to embarrass BA - but what
else can they do? The strike had its moment of glory, and its
absurdities, such as Sir William Rees-Mogg stranded on the runway for
three hours, returning to harrumph in his Times column that the scurvy
knaves should be whipped (or thereabouts). It was, he fumed, "a
violation of our human rights ... wrongful imprisonment is a criminal
offence, whether committed by an airline or a trade union ... The
Heathrow strike was the T&G versus the British people ...
legislation is needed to protect the public." Exactly what more
legislation, short of bringing back the cat, he did not say. Of the
plight of the low-paid, not a word.
The Gate Gourmet sackings may go to court eventually, but there is
little that this group of predominantly female, middle-aged Asian
workers can do. Their union is in a bind. The BA staff who walked out
in wildcat sympathy action with the women would no doubt do it again,
since these women are the BA baggage handlers' wives and mothers, and
sympathy doesn't come much stronger than that. Until BA contracted out
its catering they all worked together. But the strike action was doubly
illegal - without a ballot and secondary action. Few who remember the
1970s would want to repeal either of those laws, but what happened at
Gate Gourmet was outrageously unjust. It is not only the law that
restrains the T&G but an unwillingness to do more damage to BA,
where thousands of its members depend on the airline's precarious
success. So the union will not be calling for passenger boycotts or
seeking to trash BA's good name any further.
The self-styled world's favourite airline has already done that
perilously well for itself by contracting out a service that is vital
to its marketing success. BA's loss of £40m (and probably a lot more
in future custom) should become a business-school exemplar on how the
subcontracting culture can bring down a company. Look what happened to
hospital wards when managers lost control of cleaning. Look what
happened to school dinners, street cleaning and park maintenance when
councils were forced to contract out those services to the lowest
bidders.
The Gate Gourmet saga raises deep questions that go a long way to
explaining why Britain is a low-pay, low-skill, low-productivity
economy with a pay scale that every year drives the top and the bottom
further apart. Gate Gourmet is not an anomaly or a freak case of wild
West Texas management. It is British business's state of mind, it is
the CBI and the chambers of commerce, it is the essence of political
discourse on industry, where the only value is the short-term quick
buck in share price, where "flexibility" and outsourcing are always
good and regulation always bad.
Gate Gourmet has lifted the lid on low-pay life. Consider the
immigration aspects: Britain is one of the few countries to open its
doors immediately to eastern European workers. Home Office figures show
that most are not skilled plumbers or nurses but in minimum-wage jobs.
Other migrants are working in the black economy below the minimum wage,
while the government refuses to create a work inspectorate to root out
companies exploiting weakness and ignorance about basic working rights.
Labour rejected the EU Agency Workers Directive to give temporary staff
the same conditions, to deter Gate Gourmet behaviour.
Trade unions are decently unwilling to stir xenophobia, but Britain's
and America's enthusiasm for "liberal" migration policy springs not
from generosity to foreigners but from the other kind of "liberal"
sentiments - the free-market buccaneering way to undercut wages.
Current wage rates are inexplicable by normal economic rules: when
labour markets are tight, wages should rise - but they haven't. It is
partly cartel behaviour by supermarkets, care homes and the like, which
don't need to lift the phone to conspire with one another (which would
be illegal) to agree to hold down the rate for low-paid jobs. Many
supermarkets are short of shelf stackers and care homes are often
critically short-staffed - but they never raise the pay: foreign
workers help to fill the gaps alongside grantless students who now need
to work.
In London this is especially dysfunctional, because it has the highest
unemployment in the country, more young black men unemployed and more
poor mothers unable to work because of prohibitive childcare costs. Yet
importing labour is easier and cheaper than training up our own people
and paying them a living family wage for London.
The Financial Times castigated the rest of Europe this week for keeping
out cheap migrant labour. "Open the doors," it commanded France and
Germany. "If companies based in Europe are to compete globally they
need flexible access to labour, including migrants."
Flexible is a polite word for low pay. In service industries, this has
nothing to do with global competition. Shelves can't be stacked in
Singapore nor grannies bathed in Bombay, nor airline food packed
anywhere but Heathrow. Cheap service-sector jobs do nothing much for
the wider economy: they only provide the better-off with services that
are cheaper than the true cost. Eating in a restaurant where kitchen
staff can't survive on the pay means the worker half starves or, if
they have children, the state picks up our tab in tax-credit subsidies.
Low-paid work is the greatest growth sector, but the government should
frown on it, not encourage and subsidise it. Meanwhile manufacturing
fails for lack of German-style investment in apprenticeships and
R&D, which makes Germany Europe's great exporter. You can't
export cheap services or thrive on unskilled work.
Gate Gourmet screws down pay in very British style while FTSE company
directors pay themselves a very British 16% rise, with a typical CEO on
£2.5m. So where is the indignation? Where is the leadership that dares
even whisper a question about this growing social dislocation? People
are left to presume that there is no alternative to some malign
economic force beyond human control. The truth is that penury and greed
are political choices, not economic destiny: we can be Nordic, not
American, and we can be John Lewis, not Gate Gourmet, employers if we
choose.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists...552342,00.html
Aug 18th 2005, 10:41 pm
#2
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Guardian: Free-market buccaneers
> The Gate Gourmet sackings may go to court eventually, but there is
> little that this group of predominantly female, middle-aged Asian
> workers can do. Their union is in a bind. The BA staff who walked out
> in wildcat sympathy action with the women would no doubt do it again,
> since these women are the BA baggage handlers' wives and mothers, and
> sympathy doesn't come much stronger than that. Until BA contracted out
> its catering they all worked together. But the strike action was doubly
> illegal - without a ballot and secondary action. Few who remember the
> 1970s would want to repeal either of those laws
I do and I would. So would anyone who remembers the Grunwick dispute
that was the beginning of the Thatcherite repression of the low-paid,
mostly female, mostly Asian workforce. Laws against sympathy strikes
and secondary picketing are laws against compassion and solidarity.
Back when they were introduced, the Guardian supported the SDP (the
fringe party of right-wing pro-American, pro-nuclear-weapons nutters
who destroyed Labour's chances of seeing Thatcher off). Anti-union
legislation like this was one of the main points of agreement between
the SDP and the Tories. It seems like not much has changed at the
Guardian in 35 years.
============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557
> little that this group of predominantly female, middle-aged Asian
> workers can do. Their union is in a bind. The BA staff who walked out
> in wildcat sympathy action with the women would no doubt do it again,
> since these women are the BA baggage handlers' wives and mothers, and
> sympathy doesn't come much stronger than that. Until BA contracted out
> its catering they all worked together. But the strike action was doubly
> illegal - without a ballot and secondary action. Few who remember the
> 1970s would want to repeal either of those laws
I do and I would. So would anyone who remembers the Grunwick dispute
that was the beginning of the Thatcherite repression of the low-paid,
mostly female, mostly Asian workforce. Laws against sympathy strikes
and secondary picketing are laws against compassion and solidarity.
Back when they were introduced, the Guardian supported the SDP (the
fringe party of right-wing pro-American, pro-nuclear-weapons nutters
who destroyed Labour's chances of seeing Thatcher off). Anti-union
legislation like this was one of the main points of agreement between
the SDP and the Tories. It seems like not much has changed at the
Guardian in 35 years.
============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557
Aug 19th 2005, 2:23 am
#3
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Guardian: Free-market buccaneers
Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:
>>The Gate Gourmet sackings may go to court eventually, but there is
>>little that this group of predominantly female, middle-aged Asian
>>workers can do. Their union is in a bind. The BA staff who walked out
>>in wildcat sympathy action with the women would no doubt do it again,
>>since these women are the BA baggage handlers' wives and mothers, and
>>sympathy doesn't come much stronger than that. Until BA contracted out
>>its catering they all worked together. But the strike action was doubly
>>illegal - without a ballot and secondary action. Few who remember the
>>1970s would want to repeal either of those laws
>
>
> I do and I would. So would anyone who remembers the Grunwick dispute
> that was the beginning of the Thatcherite repression of the low-paid,
> mostly female, mostly Asian workforce. Laws against sympathy strikes
> and secondary picketing are laws against compassion and solidarity.
>
> Back when they were introduced, the Guardian supported the SDP (the
> fringe party of right-wing pro-American, pro-nuclear-weapons nutters
> who destroyed Labour's chances of seeing Thatcher off). Anti-union
> legislation like this was one of the main points of agreement between
> the SDP and the Tories. It seems like not much has changed at the
> Guardian in 35 years.
>
> ============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
> Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
> <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
> stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557
If I understand correctly, the Gate Gourmet workers who were sacked were
originally all BA employees?
>>The Gate Gourmet sackings may go to court eventually, but there is
>>little that this group of predominantly female, middle-aged Asian
>>workers can do. Their union is in a bind. The BA staff who walked out
>>in wildcat sympathy action with the women would no doubt do it again,
>>since these women are the BA baggage handlers' wives and mothers, and
>>sympathy doesn't come much stronger than that. Until BA contracted out
>>its catering they all worked together. But the strike action was doubly
>>illegal - without a ballot and secondary action. Few who remember the
>>1970s would want to repeal either of those laws
>
>
> I do and I would. So would anyone who remembers the Grunwick dispute
> that was the beginning of the Thatcherite repression of the low-paid,
> mostly female, mostly Asian workforce. Laws against sympathy strikes
> and secondary picketing are laws against compassion and solidarity.
>
> Back when they were introduced, the Guardian supported the SDP (the
> fringe party of right-wing pro-American, pro-nuclear-weapons nutters
> who destroyed Labour's chances of seeing Thatcher off). Anti-union
> legislation like this was one of the main points of agreement between
> the SDP and the Tories. It seems like not much has changed at the
> Guardian in 35 years.
>
> ============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ==============
> Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760
> <http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/> for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975
> stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557
If I understand correctly, the Gate Gourmet workers who were sacked were
originally all BA employees?
Aug 19th 2005, 5:36 am
#4
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Guardian: Free-market buccaneers
Yes. BA, like the Governments of the UK and the USA and many many other
firms, have privatised and outsourced as much as they could, with the
result that much work is done by illegal aliens/asylum seekers/low-wage
workers in India and China, etc.
The end result is that UK- or US-based workers get no pensions, get
minimum wage or less, and so on. It's bottom-feeding of the worst type.
Half the savings go not to BA or the Government etc but to the
buccanneers who run the outsourcing firms.
firms, have privatised and outsourced as much as they could, with the
result that much work is done by illegal aliens/asylum seekers/low-wage
workers in India and China, etc.
The end result is that UK- or US-based workers get no pensions, get
minimum wage or less, and so on. It's bottom-feeding of the worst type.
Half the savings go not to BA or the Government etc but to the
buccanneers who run the outsourcing firms.
Aug 19th 2005, 7:06 am
#5
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: Guardian: Free-market buccaneers
Axqi wrote:
> Yes. BA, like the Governments of the UK and the USA and many many other
> firms, have privatised and outsourced as much as they could, with the
> result that much work is done by illegal aliens/asylum seekers/low-wage
> workers in India and China, etc.
> The end result is that UK- or US-based workers get no pensions, get
> minimum wage or less, and so on. It's bottom-feeding of the worst type.
> Half the savings go not to BA or the Government etc but to the
> buccanneers who run the outsourcing firms.
so what are you going to do about it ?
> Yes. BA, like the Governments of the UK and the USA and many many other
> firms, have privatised and outsourced as much as they could, with the
> result that much work is done by illegal aliens/asylum seekers/low-wage
> workers in India and China, etc.
> The end result is that UK- or US-based workers get no pensions, get
> minimum wage or less, and so on. It's bottom-feeding of the worst type.
> Half the savings go not to BA or the Government etc but to the
> buccanneers who run the outsourcing firms.
so what are you going to do about it ?
