THE STRUGGLE at Butlins in Bognor Regis continues. Resort Safety Officers walked out on a protest strike demanding £14 hourly wage. Now some Butlins workers have been offered £15 an hour, plus free food and accommodation. But this is not a cause for celebration, as these benefits are only for the new employees recruited to break the strike organised by United Voices of the World (UVW). The bank holiday strike over staffing, equipment, breaks, pay and working conditions will be followed by another two weekend strikes and an indefinite strike from 21st September.

UVW say that Butlin’s scab staff qualifications are best described as “questionable”. General Secretary Nelly Ospino said “this is a deeply troubling development. Our members have repeatedly said that they want to work. They want to keep Butlin’s guests safe and they want to resolve this dispute through negotiation. If Butlin’s has the resources to bring in new workers on reportedly better terms, it should have the resources to properly value the people who are already doing this vital job. The door to negotiations remains open, but that responsibility now
rests with Butlin’s CEO and management”.

Meanwhile workers at London Heathrow Airport say their working conditions are making them
ill. In a poll conducted by their union, Unite, which has 30,000 members there working in security, catering, cleaning and ground & luggage handling. 82 per cent of those surveyed said there had been problems with workplace facilities during the year resulting on 30 per cent experienced illhealth in the same period.

In particular 43 per cent said there were not enough toilets, with 61 per cent saying they were not clean and well maintained, Broken and dirty showers and mould were other delights arising from working at Britain’s leading airport whose owner, Heathrow Airport Limted, (HAL) made a £575 million profit last year. In addition, workers complain of overcrowded and unhygienic rest rooms.

Nature lovers will be delighted at the opportunity to record various types of mice, rats, cockroaches and bedbugs discovered. But there are limits to that: one worker reported seeing “mice droppings in my food plates bowl and coffee cup, in my toolbox and tools and on my overalls and boots. I am deeply concerned that it is only a matter of time before myself or a colleague will get seriously ill”.

General secretary Sharon Graham said “the situation with staff facilities at Heathrow is a disgrace. No worker should risk their health because their employer is forcing them to take rest breaks in dirty areas or denied breaks as areas are too crowded”.

Unite is demanding that HAL fully review cleaning standards and contracts, improve reporting and monitoring systems to ensure standards are maintained and shortfalls promptly dealt with. They also want clear lines of accountability to be established for the maintenance and upkeep of all the facilities, including restrooms.

All these problems stem from the privatisation of Heathrow in 1986, the first such privatisation in the world, and has thus become a laboratory for neo-liberalism. Even before that the airport’s services such as catering, cleaning, retail and security were deregulated and outsourced. It was one of the first to routinely employ precarious and cheap outsourced labour provided largely by women from Commonwealth countries.

by New Worker