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Anorak News | Ground Staff Day

Ground Staff Day

by | 12th, August 2005

‘“AFTER all that’s gone on in London, this is the last thing Britain needs,” says the quote that runs atop the Telegraph’s pages two and three.

Passengers are looking for a quick solution

And what, you ask, is this story about? Surely not more bombs. More terror. More outrage.

The photograph beneath the chilling headline of a group of Asian men waving placards and looking angry only adds to the sense of foreboding.

But this is no terror strike, but industrial action by employers of Gate Catering firm, which supplies all manner of revolting in-flight food to British Airways.

These angry and newly rebranded Asian-British men are fully assimilated into the British way to life to such a degree that they know that the best time to strike is at the height of the tourist season. Who still says multi-culturalism doesn’t work?

Now when we look closely we see that the banners being held aloft by the protestors show their allegiance to “T&G”, the fearsome Transport and General Workers Union, members of which, in a show of support for the catering firm’s staff, have launched some “unofficial” action.

But even if these are “wildcat strikes”, as the Times says they are on its front page, it’s a cat that is always at the point of pouncing on anything with a wing.

The thousands of holidaymakers sitting on their bags at Heathrow Airport, eating huge bars of triangular-shaped Swiss chocolate and peeling back the metal tops on bottles of discount whisky, can read about the strike in the Telegraph.

British Airways, says the paper, is still a highly unionised operation, and this strike was as predictable as the one the year before and the one the year before that.

It might be the last thing Britain needs, but it’s what Britain gets.

But how bad is it really? We only ask because alongside the Times’s “ADVICE FOR TRAVELLERS” – view the whole thing as a themed package holiday to 1970s Britain; don’t drink the water in the toilets; make sure all camp fires are extinguished before leaving the Terminal 4 picnic area; write a will – is a picture of what would-be passengers are being offered instead of the usual in-flight gruel.

Economy passengers are each being handed a tray of food, on which features a bag of crisps, a pot of juice, what looks like a few biscuits and a chocolate bar.

It might not be a gourmet treat, but the meal has to be an improvement on the usual airplane food. Sick bags or no sick bags…’



Posted: 12th, August 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink