BRITAIN: British Airways said that its services from Heathrow Airport, which were badly disrupted at the weekend following strike action by employees in support of staff sacked by its catering contactor, were almost back to normal last night.
However, the row at the catering company, Gate Gourmet, took a dramatic twist when a newspaper published a leaked draft document drawn up last year which suggested that management should provoke strikes so that it could replace existing staff with cheaper labour. A secret internal briefing presented to bosses at the catering company reads: "Recruit, train and security check drivers. Announce intention to trade union, provoking unofficial industrial action from staff. Dismiss current workforce. Replace with new staff."
The leaked draft document, prepared in 2004 and published yesterday by the Daily Mirror, sets out a 15-week timetable for goading employees into striking so they could be replaced with lower-paid Eastern European workers trained in secret. The scheme bears striking similarities to events of the last week, when the company summarily sacked hundreds of staff who had taken unofficial action on Wednesday. Last year's memo also highlights the main risk of the plan as being "potential for wider Heathrow disruption".
A spokesman for Gate Gourmet admitted yesterday that the plan to replace staff had been floated. However, he insisted it was never actually implemented.
"The document was fielded as a proposal by former management and it was subsequently presented to current management in 2004. Current management discarded the plan and its recommendations as entirely inappropriate and undesirable. The authors of the plan have since left the company."
The spokesman added: "The recommendations within previous management's proposal were absolute rubbish. This idea plays no part in the way we do our business, end of story."
The Mirror said that the document detailed three options for getting rid of employees. The "milestones" option describes how they could be fired after being provoked into industrial action. It listed methods which could be used to aggravate the company's drivers,including dramatically worsening their working conditions.
Among the proposals were "no redundancy packages, no leaving early, no extra pay for extra work, random drug testing, no smoking, eating, or drinking in cabs".
It also specified how best to sack workers: "Immediate dismissal without legal protection. Collect ID cards, airside passes, locker keys. HR to issue dismissal letters, extra security presence. Security to escort all dismissed staff from the premises."
After the sacking, the document says management should "consistently state our case as being reasonable and willing to reconcile".
The memo names agencies that could find replacement staff, primarily from Poland, and suggests that they could be coached in from their home country and provided with accommodation. Rent would then be docked from their pay packets directly by the company.
According to the Mirror, the timetable also indicated that the customer - BA - should be tipped off about what was happening prior to the sackings. "Customer: Verbally at the highest levels we should state our intention." However, there is no evidence that the airline was told of the mooted scheme.
Andrew Dodgshon, spokesman for the Transport and General Workers' Union, said he was not surprised by the document. "That is entirely consistent with what we saw last week. We know what sort of company we're dealing with here. I'm sure Gate Gourmet had all sort of plans and the plan put into operation last week was plain for all to see. But we've got the company moved into talking about reinstatement now. We need to keep talking."
Talks between Gate Gourmet and the TGWU, which are being overseen by the British industrial relations conciliation service, Acas, continued yesterday.
Meanwhile, British Airways announced that its Heathrow operations were almost back to normal. BA said all its short-haul flights and more than 95 per cent of its long-haul flights were operating normally.
In the past few days, an estimated 100,000 BA passengers were stranded either at Heathrow or at airports abroad because of the dispute.