“Heathrow Airport is bracing for major disruption” from Friday after baggage handlers employed by service provider Menzies decided to strike, the Union union said in a statement dated Thursday.
However, a Heathrow spokesman, contacted on Friday, minimized the impact of this exclusion: “the airlines concerned have already taken measures to deal with it and no flight cancellations are expected”.
“Dramatic pay cuts”
At the same time, postal workers have extended several planned strikes until 2023, which could affect the distribution of mail and packages during the important holiday season. Workers in the public logistics company Post Office have thus decided to extend a strike until next year, according to a press release from the trade union CWU, which condemns “reductions in real wages (adjusted for inflation) spectacular”.
Workers at Royal Mail, a shrinking postal delivery company that recently announced thousands of redundancies, have also planned to extend a months-long strike that could disrupt online shopping and sending Christmas presents.
Christmas shopping could also be disrupted by an announced strike by security guards at London’s famous luxury department store Harrods.
Finally, officials from the Ministry of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Customs and Borders and the Ministry of Transport affiliated with the PCS union also voted to strike at the end of the year, notably after a failed meeting with the government to obtain wage increases in line with inflation.