Gate Gourmet, the catering company at the centre of recent disruption at Heathrow, has been complaining in the media that it is cash strapped and at the mercy of the wildcat strikers. Like all corporate spin, we should not take this at face value. Gate Gourmet is the second-largest airline catering company in the world, formed from the merger of several companies, including British Airways' own catering wing. Not only does this arms-length arrangement allow British Airways to claim that it is not responsible for any low pay or mistreatment by Gourmet, it also limits action by BA staff in support of their fellow workers at Gate Gourmet.

The solidarity recently shown by BA staff in walking out is therefore very important – it highlights the way companies are set up with complex structures of subsidiaries and parent companies to avoid responsibility and risk. And when we examine Gourmet's claims to be cash strapped we find a very different story.

Gourmet was bought up by a Texan venture capitalist firm in 2001 in a 'leveraged buy out' (LBO). This concept involves firms buying up companies with money -- mostly borrowed -- in the hope of re-selling them for a handsome profit. Gate Gourmet is obliged to pay its parent company a certain level of 'fees', and interest payments, which do not count as shareholder profits, and so Gourmet bosses can whine to the media that it is 'losing' money. Meanwhile the catering company is siphoning millions to other companies: according to the Observer, 'Gate Gourmet Finance UK Ltd... made a £5m profit in 2003, receiving £5.8m in interest from affiliated group companies. Meanewhile the Texans strip it to the bone in the hope of a juicy sell off.

The route to this sell off also involved new plans for re-structuring the labour force -- in other words, laying off many workers and making those that are left work for less. It now appears that this attack on the staff was a trick too far for the Texans, prompting the wildcat response by Gourmet's workforce.

The strike at Gate Gourmet is hence crucial on a number of different levels -- it demonstrates the capacity of people to resist corporations at the practical level, and to resist the legal chicaneries that companies use to blindfold us to their real actions. No wonder that Gourmet have tried to limit strikers' protests, using injunctions similar to those recently brought out against those active against cluster bomb manufacturer EDO in Brighton . And of course this is also an environmental issue, due to the tonnes of greenhouse gases that will not be emitted by the BA planes that are grounded. As one caller to BBC news said, 'I live under the Heathrow flightpath and this is the first night I've had any peace and quiet. Up the workers!'

You can send a quick email of complaint to the Gate Gourmet bosses by going to this website:
www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=56