Union accuses Labour of ‘direct attack’ on airline staff by not backing 10% rise

David Lammy sparked a fresh row with a key trade union by saying Labour should categorically refuse to back demands from airline workers for a pay rise.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, accused the shadow foreign secretary of launching a direct attack on the workers it represents and said his comments were a new low for the Labour Party.

Graham wanted to reduce Unite's contributions to Labour. Graham has said she would like to divert the union's budget elsewhere.

Lammy firmly dismissed airline workers' pay demands in his interview on the Sunday Morning show.

Lammy was asked if he supported the check-in staff at Heathrow who voted to go on strike over management's refusal to reverse the 10% pay cut imposed during the Pandemic.

Lammy said that many of them might want a 10% increase. It is unlikely that you will get that.

Lammy didn't support the check-in staff who are members of Unite. It's not a yes.

He said that he wouldn't support them because he was serious about the business of being in government.

He said that the government isn't negotiating. The government doesn't want to reach a compromise.

Graham said that David Lammy had chosen to attack British Airways workers. A group of workers were savagely attacked by their employers.

Workers are not asking for a 10% pay rise, but the restoration of money taken from them when pay was cut during the Pandemic, according to Graham. She said that the company had billions of dollars in reserves and was expecting a profit this quarter.

It's a new low for Labour to support bad bosses. It is up to the trade unions to defend their members. We are the only one who can speak for them.

Keir Starmer was accused of a failure of leadership by Graham last week. She said that you don't have to hide.

When Lammy was asked what would happen to the Labour MPs who joined picket lines, he said that Alan Campbell, the shadow chief whip, would speak to them and make it very clear that a serious party of government doesn't join picket lines.

Even though they had been told to stay away from Starmer's office, some frontbenchers and parliamentary aides picketed.

Labour is the party of working people, but that doesn't mean it should always side with workers in disputes. He said there were also people who use the trains to get to work.

Postal workers are due to vote on strike action over a 2% pay rise. Dave Ward told Sky News on Sunday that he was disappointed by Labour's attitude towards unions taking industrial action.

He believes that the reason that people moved away from Labour was due to the fact that they didn't like the way they were treated by the party.

I don't think people will turn their backs on working people who are facing these challenges because we're all in the same boat.