Workers must not side with Heathrow staff in pay dispute, says David Lammy

Workers should categorically refuse to support airline workers’ demands for a pay rise of around 10% to show they are serious about seeking negotiated outcomes to disputes, David Lammy has said.

The shadow foreign secretary said that Labor had to act as a government party and that responsible governments believed in negotiation and compromise.

The party has been criticized for not backing the RMT in the current dispute that triggered the rail strikes, but Labor leaders have rarely rejected union wage demands as firmly as Lammy in his interview on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme.

Lammy was asked if he supported BA’s billing staff at Heathrow, who voted to go on strike over management’s refusal to reverse the 10% pay cut imposed during the pandemic.

“A lot of us would like a 10% raise,” Lammy said. “In truth, most people understand that you are unlikely to make it.”

When asked directly if she supports the registration staff, who are members of Unite, Lammy replied, “No, I don’t. It is a no. It is a categorical no.”

When asked why he wouldn’t support them, he replied: “Because I’m serious about the business of being in government, and the business of being in government is that you support negotiation.

Referring to the railway dispute, he said: “This government is not negotiating. This government does not support reaching a compromise.”

Unite, unlike RMT, is affiliated with the Labor Party and has been its biggest financial backer in the past. However, Sharon Graham, who took over as general secretary last year, has harshly criticized Keir Starmer’s stance on the rail strike and hinted that funding for Labor will be cut.

Asked what would happen to the Labor MPs who joined the picket lines to show support for the RMT rail strike, Lammy said that Alan Campbell, the shadow boss whip, would speak to them “and make it very clear that a serious party of the government does not join the pickets”.

Some MPs and parliamentary aides were among the pickets, despite being explicitly ordered by Starmer’s office to stay away.

Lammy said that Labor was the workers’ party, but that did not mean that it should automatically side with workers against employers in a dispute. Although rail workers had legitimate grievances, he suggested, there were also “hard-working people who use the trains to get to work.”

On Tuesday, the Communication Workers Union is due to start voting striking postal workers for a 2% wage increase offer. Dave Ward, the general secretary of the CWU, told Sky News on Sunday that he was “disappointed” by the Labor Party’s attitude towards unions taking industrial action.

“I think Labor miscalculated, because I think they are obsessed with reconnecting with workers, and the reason people turned away from Labor was because of Brexit,” he said.

“I don’t think people turn their backs on workers facing these challenges because we’re all really in it together.”