STRIKE action has been threatened by the union representing cargo staff employed by John Menzies at Heathrow Airport, raising the prospect of disruption to the Edinburgh-based company's international freight activities out of London.
Unite said it is preparing to ballot its members over a two-year pay freeze imposed by Menzies Aviation on its staff at the UK's busiest airport for 2012 and 2013.
The move comes after talks aimed resolving the dispute at Acas broke down without agreement earlier this week.
Menzies said the pay freeze is needed to help the operation, which has been loss-making since 2007, return to profitability.
A spokesman for Unite, which represents 294 cargo staff at Heathrow, said a strike could still be averted. He said: "If Menzies decides to return to the negotiating table, and talk to us about recognising the cargo workers' contribution to the success of their business, a strike can be avoided.
"If it continues to talk about two years of a pay freeze, then there is not going to a resolution without a strike ballot."
Last year saw Menzies close several loss-making cargo sites, including Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and East Midlands, as part of a strategy to revamp its aviation business. It insisted the future of the Heathrow operation was not in doubt.
Company secretary John Geddes said: "We took action last summer to close a number of cargo operations which were loss-making, one included Glasgow. We supported our Heathrow operation and want to continue to support that, but we can't continue to sustain losses at the rate they are. We have asked Unite to work with us and look at a pay freeze. We are disappointed they have chosen to take the action that they have, but we are committed to still negotiating with them and trying to find a way we can continue to support the operation, support our employees and our customers."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article