HEATHROW workers have won the right to picket their place of work. On 24 June the British Airways Ramp 7 who had challenged the Metropolitan Police's and the British Airport Authority's Heathrow bye-law on picketing were discharged. Their action has now been rendered lawtui chairperson Heathrow looks at the dispute and the implications for the future HEATHROW has always been highly unionised, spite or ine difficulty communication, yet with such a high concentration of industrial units in the area, disrupLON disputes, remarkably low. In the disputes have normally been sharp and OI short duration, often unconnected each other.
The most spectacular occurred in the Seventics. when General Aviation Services, interpretation of the Ramp, TGWU at background the a North American company, attempted operate a comprehensive handling unit. The methods contemplated by LuS Combay was seem ov the whole of the workforce at Heathrow as a threat to job security and the future of the public sector. The workforce rose up as one in opposition to the instituting of this company result GAS was thrown off the BAA, and the airport after a series of 'blackings' of up to 20,000 and a 4-day strike.
Since then workers have developed a closer Yet with such a of DIOdu tivities, workers at LHR have never been able to exercise their right to picket their place of work, within the Dennelel Todu. The BAA who have their own claimeds that always claimed these byeprohibited picketing daws anywhere on their properwhich is everything inHeathrow is split into dreds and landside. use sales , provide the entrance/exit points between There are also these areas. fully leased properties the area, used only by the tenant and his employees.
The Metropolitan Police, who took up residence at LHR in the mid seventies, have extensive powers which vary between airside and landside, and they haven't been slow to use them. Each time an dispute has occurred, it is the police who have determined whether to allow a 'presence' outside a fully leased building, or at the common-user gates. When permission has been called. this has usuall been on the proviso that placards should be displayed armbands shown and no approach to be made to anybody. i ne police also made it clear problems faced by the re cent British Airways Ramp dispute. During the whole eight weeks of that 'blacklegs' performed the ramp workers' lasks, wntle orner workers continued to work normally. History For a few days at the beginning of the dispute the ramp workers mainLanice described above, which proved to be of no avail. It was then decided to picket the public highway outside the perimeter that the Ramr Workers decided that this invidious position regards to picketing should be brought to head. Return On 31 March, the day before the Ramp workers were forced to return to work, seven pickets went to one of the common-user gates inside the perimeter, armed with placards and They successfully for about an hour, when the police arrived and arrested all seven and charged them under the BAA bye-laws.
Now the magistrates' judgment means airport workers will enjoy equal piace ing rights at their Dace work on a pal with workers throughout The ramp workers who were forced return to work, through lack of support from the rest of the trade union movement secured for all have workers at LHR, a basic democratic right
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under Section 16 of the Employment Act. MIKE CORNU,
side the perimeter road. Two