London Stansted Airport in the UK has issued a warning for passengers travelling to and from the airport on May 23, 24, 26, 27 and 28, and June 2 to 6 2012.
The airport has announced that members of the GMB and Unite unions, which represent the ground-based handling staff at the airport, will take planned periods of industrial action on those dates. The unions announced the strike action as talks aimed at resolving a dispute with Swissport International, a company that provides ground support services at Stansted Airport, were said to have failed. The dispute concerned work rosters.
The seven days of industrial action will include the following schedule:
From 05.30 hrs on May 23 to 05.30 hrs on May 24, 2012.
From 05.30 hrs on May 26 to 05.30 on May 28, 2012.
And 05.30 hrs on June 2 to 05.30 on June 6, 2012.
The airport notification states, that ‘it has contingency plans in place and expects to operate a full flight schedule. Stansted Airport will be open and plans to operate as normal at all times.’
Gary Pearce, the GMB organiser, has said in a statement, ‘GMB negotiators have been in talks to reach an agreement to resolve this issue since the agreed suspension of the strike action scheduled over Easter. It is a shame that Swissport made and then withdrawn a number of proposals including a return to the original 4 days on and 2 days off roster which would have settled the dispute. The proposals were withdrawn last Friday. GMB gave notice of further strike action on last Tuesday while have continuing to negotiate but without success. No one from Swissport has made any attempt to contact GMB over the weekend despite knowing that we are available 24/7 to meet with them. It seems we are at the end of the line and that strike action will begin at Stansted airport form 0530 on the 23 May until 0530 on the 24 May.’
