Heathrow Terminal 5 security staff strike to disrupt British Airways flights for 10 days

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• TGLoyalty says:

  21 Mar21 March 07:34

  Rejecting a 10% pay rise … wow they must be expecting some inflation busting increase.

• Stu N says:

  21 Mar21 March 07:41

  I have prepared a quick FAQ to answer 90% of the questions in todays’ comments.

  1) No-one knows yet.

  2) The answer is already in the article.

  3) It’s nothing to do with Mick Lynch but I agree he is a working class hero/ anachronistic force for evil*
  * delete as applicable

  Think this covers it…

  • Cat says:

    21 Mar21 March 18:19

    🤣

• AJA says:

  21 Mar21 March 07:42

  I support the right to strike although I personally would never go on strike as I think it’s a harsh instrument that does more harm than good. And with so many strikes happening I do wonder if we’re reaching saturation point with public support.

  I wonder what salary increase the union is hoping to achieve for their members as 10% seems pretty decent.

  • Nototheentitled says:

    21 Mar21 March 07:57

    Never is enough for these bunch

  • Rob says:

    21 Mar21 March 08:08

    Pret just went to £14 per hour which is £30k for working in a sandwich shop, with far better hours than this. £30k seems reasonable.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      21 Mar21 March 08:20

      No they didn’t

      The sandwich and coffee chain is to hike hourly pay for team members in April from £10.30 to £10.60, or from £11.55 to £11.90, depending on your location and experience

      • TGLoyalty says:

        21 Mar21 March 08:22

        Also who gets the starting salary? A 22 year old for the first 6 months?

        What’s the median salary?

      • The Original David says:

        21 Mar21 March 08:27

        Rob must tip the Pret staff more generously than you 😉

      • Andrew. says:

        21 Mar21 March 08:33

        “the Graudian” claim otherwise.

        “Pret announced earlier this month that it was giving staff a third pay rise in 12 months, with its baristas able to earn up to £11.80 to £14.10 an hour depending on location and experience. The highest hourly pay in the new rates starting from April includes a bonus for providing good service.”

        https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/12/junior-doctors-paid-lower-hourly-rate-than-workers-to-get-at-pret

        • AJA says:

          21 Mar21 March 11:16

          That Guardian article was comparing the 1st year salary of a junior doctor to the highest paid barista at Pret. And was just as irrelevant. I don’t think anyone seriously believes a junior doctor is going to leave the NHS to become a barista in a coffee shop. They’d still be lumbered with their student debt and in a couple of years they will be on significantly more than the top paid coffee shop worker. And that £14 rate is only achievable for “good work” whatever that means.

    • masaccio says:

      21 Mar21 March 08:58

      The £14.10 Pret figure includes a “secret shopper” bonus and applies to the most experienced baristas in the highest-paying locations, so it’s not a real salary. Depending upon the politics of the journo doing the reporting, they pick different figures.

      The underlying narrative of the Grauniad et al seems to basically be that the minimum wage needs as 20-30% hike. I don’t think the UK economy is ready for that.

    • Sarah says:

      21 Mar21 March 09:38

      Very few Pret staff are getting £14. It’s depressing to see people who are no doubt on a lot more than £30k saying that the workers who provide services to them don’t even deserve the bare minimum.

    • AJA says:

      21 Mar21 March 11:08

      I don’t really get the idea of comparing what a shop worker gets compared to a security guard. You might as well compare what they get paid compared to what Rhys is paid, it’s just as irrelevant.

      A better comparison is what security guards get paid at LGW or LCY. Or any one of the facilities around LHR eg Feltham Trading Estate or Slough Trading Estate.

      • Rob says:

        21 Mar21 March 11:21

        You can’t seriously say that someone who is trained to operate a security scanner at Heathrow (with the responsibility that brings) is equivalent to someone who sits in a cupboard all night with an alsation on a trading estate watching TV whilst keeping a half-eye on a couple of CCTV cameras and going for a quick stroll once an hour.

        • AJA says:

          21 Mar21 March 13:20

          I wasn’t saying that. But I assume (happy to be corrected) that the trading estate security role is paid a lower salary than the Heathrow security role?

          My point is that those two jobs are far more comparable than being a security guard at LHR versus being a Pret Barista.

          And I find your observation rather condescending towards the industrial estate security guard, those warehouses often contain cargo worth billions. Is there no responsibility involved in guarding that?

    • Nototheentitled says:

      21 Mar21 March 15:53

      30k for a job that doesnt require any degrees or education is ridiculous when junior doctors got paid the same

      • Rob says:

        21 Mar21 March 16:07

        I seriously doubt you could run an X-ray scanner at Heathrow with zero qualifications.

        We pay our cleaner / housekeeper £33,000 and she only speaks a splash of English and I doubt her qualifications are up to much. She doesn’t start work at 5am either.

        I think you’re out of touch with what people need to earn in London to live a half-decent life.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          21 Mar21 March 20:38

          Now thats two different questions and suspect the fact you pay a cleaner that shows how ridiculously out of touch c strap London is with the rest of Britain.

          Anyway no one working in Heathrow with half a brain is living in central London.

        • His Holyness says:

          21 Mar21 March 20:53

          Might it not be a sign of an equitable employer to arrange English lessons for your cleaner?

• Bagoly says:

  21 Mar21 March 08:00

  I can’t say I have ever seen a security operative and passengers smiling like that even before recent inflation and strikes!

• Guernsey Bob says:

  21 Mar21 March 08:28

  Linked to this subject, can anyone answer the following question please?
  I connect at T5 from the Channel Islands for domestic and international flights quite often and I have yet to find the way to stay in transit rather than what happens which is you follow the signs and it puts you out into departures and so you have to go through sercurity again, it infuriates me and no staff seem to know the answer when I ask. I’m through T5 to YYZ during the said strike days and coming from CI I can avoid security, any thoughts out there?

  • DW says:

    21 Mar21 March 08:37

    From JER with BA you arrive at the same stands as DUB. You can stay airside but you get let through to international arrivals – you have to clear transfer security again.

    • Stu N says:

      21 Mar21 March 09:07

      DUB/JER to domestic has to go landside, I think it’s a constraint of layout of T5; you have to skip immigration but clear customs so you’re sent via Internation arrivals and then landside and back through security.

      DUB/JER to international you can stay airside, no immigration or customs so you go straight to connections security and then out into T5 airside.

      You’ll need to pay close attention to signage as you come off the plane, it’s not the most obvious.

      • JDB says:

        21 Mar21 March 09:30

        It’s not a constraint of T5 (it was the same at T1) but the peculiarity of the nature of travellers from Channel Islands and Dublin not needing to clear immigration, but needing to clear customs. I’m not entirely sure if it applies to Jersey (being outside the UK) but it certainly applies to Dublin passengers that everyone departing on a flight the UK must have been security screened in the UK. This even applies eg to transit passengers on the same aircraft.

        • Stu N says:

          21 Mar21 March 19:04

          @JDB hence me saying constraint of _layout_ – for small number of passengers going Common Travel Area -> Domestic it presumably isn’t worth setting up a route that goes through customs and then links with flight connections airside.

      • Guernsey Bob says:

        21 Mar21 March 09:42

        Thanks Stu. As you say the signage is not clear but an additional contradiction is that the luggage stays in the system but the passenger doesnt

        • Stu N says:

          21 Mar21 March 19:07

          Same for any domestic though, if you fly anywhere – LHR – domestic your bags are checked through.

          For example there’s a red lane telephone and (very!) occasionally customs people in the domestic baggage claim at EDI.

      • Londonsteve says:

        23 Mar23 March 13:16

        Bit OT: when passing through customs at St. Pancras coming back from Paris recently three young ladies swinging a flottila of Louis Vuitton shopping bags were pulled over. Once the customs officer had established they were US citizens on holiday and not resident in the UK, he sent them on their way. I was a bit surprised, I thought customs allowances apply to everyone entering the country, irrespective of their nationality or residency status in the UK?

• Mark says:

  21 Mar21 March 08:42

  Glad I’m flying Virgin at Easter (waiting for announcement in next 5 minutes of virgin strikes) Have they ever striked?

  • Ben says:

    21 Mar21 March 09:43

    Cabin crew have threatened strikes on 2 occasions in the past decade, both times a deal was struck and the strike called off. Last time was easter 2019 for reference.

• George K says:

  21 Mar21 March 08:44

  Solidarity with the strikers. I think people fail to realise how bad things must get for workers for unions to result in strikes.

  My only question is why does this only affect T5? Is Unite only operating there? Or do security staff have different arrangements between terminals?

• Jack says:

  21 Mar21 March 08:45

  Rejecting a 10% pay rise is rather silly striking is not going to get them a higher offer. Heathrow security is a shambles at the best of times they need to sort it out and fast . Heathrow needs to stop throwing it’s toys out of the pram and expecting airlines to just cancel flights because they cannot cope

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