Support sacked Gate Gourmet workers

[Cynthia]

Support low paid workers - send a message of support now - from Online Trade Unionists Forum Labour Start

UK: Gate Gourmet- Reinstate Sacked Workers Now
On Wednesday, August 10, 620 workers were sacked by the airline caterer Gate Gourmet in a dispute provoked by the company, whose aim was to replace union members with cheap labour. This dispute appears to have been planned by Gate Gourmet's United States owners, Texas Pacific Group.

Latest information:THOUSANDS OF MESSAGES FLOOD GATE GOURMET
Frankly, I've never seen anything like this before.

In the past, when we'd launch an online campaign, we'd aim to get the first 1,000 messages to the employer or government within the first day or two. We didn't always succeed, but a rate of 25 messages per hour wasn't bad.

Earlier this week, we asked all of you to send off messages to Gate Gourmet -- the company which fired its low-paid workers using a megaphone -- and your response was phenomenal.

We went from 0 to 1,000 messages not in forty hours, but in four. At one point, we were delivering 30 protest messages a minute from all over the world.

As much of this was taking place at night here in Britain, you can just imagine what greeted the well-paid executives at Gate Gourmet when they checked their email inboxes in the morning.

In addition, your messages have been going to the union (the Transport and General Workers) and the two global union federations (ITF and IUF) which are behind the campaign. The workers know how much support they have from their brothers and sisters around the world. If any of you have ever walked a lonely picket line, you know how important gestures of solidarity like this one can be.

At our current rate, this will be the largest online campaign LabourStart has ever been involved in, with 5,000 messages reaching the employer in the first three days.

It can be even bigger: we can continue to deluge Gate Gourmet with our messages, doing our little bit while hundreds of workers continue to picket at Heathrow Airport. If we get our unions to publicize this campaign to all our members, we could send another 5,000 messages over the weekend.

Your messages are making a difference, and if you are among the tens of thousands of people who are reading this email but have not yet sent in a message to Gate Gourmet, please don't delay a moment longer. The workers at Heathrow are counting on you. Please click here now:

http://www.labourstart.org/gategourmet

[Cynthia]

If you want to read more about this planned union-busting attack on low paid workers go to very good article at
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/articl ... le_id=7180

"The plot by multinational Gate Gourmet to destroy union organisation, culminating in mass sackings on Wednesday of last week, reveals what bosses believe they can get away with even after eight years of Labour government. "........

"They were sacked by megaphone, handed pre-prepared dismissal notices with just three minutes warning and manhandled off the premises by hired thugs.

Pregnant women were dragged out by security guards. People not at work that day, on sick or maternity leave, were sacked. One man found out he was out of a job just hours before his mother's funeral. "

We can't let them get away with this - please support them by sending a message of support as previous posting, Carla

[Cynthia]

I don't like talking to myself, but Porty has let me down on this one, allowing it to slip to Page 2 - so here's an update on these courageous folk with the terrible bosses.....are bosses ever not terrible? but some are far worse than others and Gate Gourmet seems to be top of that category.
Sorry Mods - please don't give me a ticking off for too much cut and paste - I'm making up for lost time! (and there's no article to link to)Carla
and if you have not already done so please send a message of support via the email link below - it only takes seconds, really.....

UK: GATE GOURMET UPDATE

According a report cited on LabourStart today, the global head of Gate Gourmet -- the airline catering firm which sacked hundreds of workers at Heathrow airport in August, using a megaphone -- is talking tough. Dave Siegel, the company head, "insisted yesterday the firm would not take back hundreds of sacked workers it regarded as radicals and militants," according to the report. "The radicals have to realise there is no place for them in the company any more," he said. "This is the company's final position: we will not take these militants, these radicals, back. They have been the source of the core problem for the company, they have been holding the company hostage."

I'd like us to send a message to Mr. Siegel. I'd like us to tell him and his company that there aren't, as he fears, "hundreds of radicals and militants". There are thousands of us. There are millions of us. In fact, we are the overwhelming majority. Working people all over the world stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the Transport and General Workers Union -- and have shown their solidarity in the last two weeks by sending off 7,193 messages of protest to Gate Gourmet, and raising £1,663 (that's $3,000 US) in small donations for their hardship fund.

This week, let's intensify the campaign -- let's tell more people about the email campaign, let's donate more money, and let's send a loud and clear message to Dave Siegel and the owners of Gate Gourmet. Let's tell them -- if you're looking for "troublemakers", here we are!

To send off a message to Gate Gourmet, go here:

http://www.labourstart.org/gategourmet

To donate to the union's hardship fund, go here:

http://www.labourstart.org/docs/en/000180.html

Thanks -- and have a great weekend.

Eric Lee