HIDDEN HISTORIES
Kavita Puri explores lesser-known stories from our past
“The strike has links to a far longer story of female south Asian protest”
It’s late on a Sunday evening in a street in west London, and the air is thick with the smell of freshly fried pakoras. Pammi Bains, who lives in one of the terraced houses, has been cooking. Pammi was part of a strike action that disrupted Heathrow airport for two days in the summer of 2005. It was an act of resistance with links to a far longer history of female south Asian protest in Britain. She says it changed her life, but few know the story of her and her fellow strikers.
Pammi was part of a workforce of predominantly Indian Punjabi women, who were employed at Gate Gourmet preparing food trays for British Airways flights. She had happily worked there for 12 years and her colleagues had become her friends, singing along to Punjabi music while they worked at the conveyor belt. But by the summer of 2005, Gate Gourmet’s BA contract had been renegotiated. Pammi’s employers were making cuts and trying to alter working conditions, and her union was pushing back.
Then, on the morning of 10 August 2005, agency staff were brought in to do the jobs on weaker conditions. The astounded employees gathered for an impromptu meeting in which they were told by management to return to work or face the sack. Union representatives told the workers to stay put. Hundreds didn’t go back, and were sacked over megaphone. Pammi had just turned up for the late shift and saw her colleagues streaming out in tears, saying they had lost their jobs. She left the premises with them. The following day, Pammi heard that she, too, had lost her job.
The next day, British Airways baggage carriers walked out in support of the Gate Gourmet workers. This resulted in BA being grounded for two days in the middle of the summer holidays. The British press largely supported travellers facing disruption, not the protesting women.
The women’s actions recalled the infamous strike at the Grunwick film processing labs in north-west London between 1976 and 1978, which involved mostly south Asian women who had come from east Africa. They were campaigning for better conditions and wages and, while they didn’t succeed in their initial aims, their readiness to stand up for their rights changed perceptions of Asian women. Those protesters received some support from the trade unions, which had traditionally not always backed south Asian women, but the Gate Gourmet protesters were fighting to keep their jobs in a very different world: one of globalisation, weaker trade union protections, and cheaper labour as the EU expanded into eastern Europe. These women were squeezed between these forces.
Striking Women: Struggles and Strategies of South Asian Women Workers from Grunwick to Gate Gourmet (L&W, 2018) by Sundari Anitha and Ruth Pearson is the first book to look at these events through the women’s lived experiences. It argues that the public memory of the Grunwick strikers – and, particularly, their iconic leader Jayaben Desai – is far better known. There was an inquiry into what happened, conducted by Lord Scarman. But few people have asked the Gate Gourmet women about their experiences, and there was no public inquiry. They have been largely forgotten in the longer struggle of female British south Asian workers’ rights.
The union did negotiate for some workers to return to Gate Gourmet in the late summer of 2005, though on worse conditions than before. They also secured redundancy payments for all staff. But Pammi refused a payout, as she would have had to drop her unfair dismissal claim against the firm. She and a group of other women carried on their protests outside Gate Gourmet for months. They were fed twice a day by the local gurdwara and supported by members of the public, including south Asian women from the Grunwick strike three decades earlier.
Pammi and her fellow workers’ case was eventually dismissed by the employment tribunal. It ruled that as they did not return to work, they were effectively taking part in unofficial strike action. Even today, Pammi cries as she remembers that time and how hard it was to get a job, because her role in the protests led to her being seen as a troublemaker.
But she has no regrets about the stand that she took, even though it ended in failure. “This should not be happening with the working class. If this is happening with me, then it can happen with my daughter – it can happen with [the] next generation as well. Who will stand up with them? I know every fight is not for win[ning]. But at least we tried to do that.”
Kavita Puri is a journalist, author and broadcaster. Her BBC Radio 4 series Three Pounds in My Pocket is currently available on BBC Sounds