The signs that trouble was brewing on Heathrow Terminal 5 were there in February last year when electricians and their employers squared up over a matter of principle. "The workers are not going to put up with this," said one union official, struggling to master his emotions. 'The contractors on the project have gone back on an agreement, and the men are suffering. This issue has to be resolved now, or there'll be uproar." The issue of contention? The distance the workers had to walk, unpaid, between the site gate and their clocking-on points. Just when it seemed that the two sides were about to embark on a full-scale exchange of hostilities, the employers' nerve snapped and they gave in to demands, agreeing to move the clocking-on points a few metres towards the gate. Union officials were satisfied: BAA and the site's contractors agreed to stick exactly to the established maximum distance between gate and clocking-on point Employers were, for the most part, irritably bemused by the demand: the handsomely paid, ￡55,000-a-year workforce had apparently been holding them to ransom over a matter of paces.
展开▼
