Heathrow boss clinches corona rogue crown

It’s been a bumper year for bad bosses but the corona rogue crown has to go to the CEO of Heathrow airport.

John Holland-Kaye enjoys an eye-wateringly huge salary and benefits.  He’s never going to be kept awake at night worrying how he is going to pay the mortgage.  But he doesn’t care for those who do, demanding that thousands of workers employed at Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) hand over a quarter of their salary.

For some, such as Baljit, that means losing £8000 a year.  That’s right, a year.  They’ll go from earning a salary that they can just about get by on in one of the most expensive cities in the world to earning below the national average wage.  For Baljit, she won’t be able to pay her mortgage.  She’ll have to uproot her kids and move miles away from her workplace.

She’s not alone.  Nearly five thousand HAL workers have been told to sign away their salaries – or be sacked.

John Holland-Kaye is holding a huge gun to their heads.  He should be ashamed of himself, especially as when this crisis took hold he boasted that HAL’s cash mountain was so vast that the airport could happily function for 15 months without a single passenger.

And who gets rich on the backs of workers like Baljit?  The Qatari royal family, some of the wealthiest people on the planet.  

Mr Holland-Kaye, you are pushing thousands of British families into poverty.  Why, so that some billionaires can buy another gold-plated yacht?

Tomorrow (December 1), these workers take a stand, going on strike to keep a roof over their heads.  But in doing so, they’re standing up for workers everywhere.

Gangsters must not prosper. For all our sakes’, the brave Davids who keep this airport functioning must defeat these greedy Goliaths.

By Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary