Lufthansa Skychef Sackings

EDM number 577 in 1998-99, proposed by Ken Livingstone on 21/04/1999.

That this House notes with concern that five months have passed since the sacking of 300 workers by the Lufthansa Skychefs General Manager Tim Otteridge, following a one day strike of staff in protest at the refusal of management to negotiate in good faith changes in working conditions; reminds Mr Otteridge that such action will be illegal when the Government's new trade union legislation become law and is currently illegal throughout the rest of European Union; is appalled that since the appointment of new Human Resources Manager Stephanie Feltham sacked employees who have applied for work elsewhere within the Heathrow complex have been unable to get jobs because their references from Skychef claim that they are 'not suitable for work in security areas' and recognises that this is a libellous and pernicious form of McCarthyite blacklisting; therefore calls on Skychef to immediately reinstate the sacked workers and appeals to the parent company Lufthansa, who have a 51 per cent. stake in Skychef to stop their subsidiary abusing British workers in a way that would be illegal in Germany; and, until the dispute is resolved, urges that honourable Members and Officers of the House should not travel on American Airlines, Canadian Airlines, Kuwait Airlines, Saudi Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Air France; Iberia, Olympic and Quantas, all of whom use Skychef catering.

This motion has been signed by a total of 41 MPs.