Union opens door to axing Heathrow summer strikes after higher pay offer

A month’s worth of strikes over pay at London’s Heathrow airport during the peak summer period could be scrapped after the UK’s second-biggest trade union axed two walkouts, averting the risk of serious hold-ups for passengers.

Unite said on Monday that it was cancelling strikes due on June 24th and June 25th by 2,000 security staff at Britain’s hub airport as “a gesture of goodwill” while they voted on an improved pay offer.

The move comes after Unite — which is recommending members accept the revised proposal — last week announced 31 one-day strikes aimed at busy days between June 24th and the end of August, including a 96-hour stoppage starting as most schools in England close for the summer on July 21.st

Wayne King, regional co-ordinator for Unite, accused airport management of having “stubbornly” refused to come up with an offer that would meet his members’ aspirations after the dispute began in March.

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The security staff, who are based at Terminals 3 and 5 and make up about 40 per cent of the airport’s security personnel, are among a wide range of public and private sector workers engaged in pay disputes amid the cost of living crisis.

The new offer from Heathrow — which said it was “pleased” to have seen unions recommend — consists of a 10 per cent pay rise for this year, backdated to January, which would increase by a further 1.5 percentage points to 11.5 per cent from October.

The airport added that it was guaranteeing an inflation-linked pay rise for 2024, with a minimum of 4 per cent. It was previously offering a 10.1 per cent increase for the whole of 2023.

The extra increase from October addresses a complaint from Unite that the previous offer fell short of retail price inflation (RPI), now running at 11.4 per cent.

Heathrow had insisted the increase amounted to a real-terms pay uplift because it exceeded the rate of consumer price inflation, a more widely used measure, now at 8.7 per cent.

The guarantee of an above-inflation rise in 2024 is linked to CPI, which is forecast to fall sharply in the coming year.

King said the new offer had been put forward after “extensive negotiations” between the union and management last week.

“Members will now be balloted on the latest offer and they will decide whether or not it meets their expectations,” he said.

Unite said that if members rejected the offer, the remaining 29 days of strike action would go ahead. The ballot on the pay offer runs from June 13th to June 23rd.

The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents some other Heathrow staff but had not been planning walkouts, is also recommending the offer to members.

Heathrow has insisted throughout that it can minimise disruption from the scheduled stoppages. The company, owned by a consortium led by Spain’s Ferrovial, indicated on Monday that it still had “robust” plans to handle any stoppages if Unite members rejected the deal. -

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023