“Outrageous!” Local MP blasts Heathrow for ditching London Living Wage commitment

John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, has blasted Heathrow Airport’s “outrageous” decision to withdraw its commitment to pay its staff the London Living wage or above.

In a discussion on Monday night’s edition of Tyskyshour (April 19th), McDonnell said ‘[Heathrow] got a lot of publicity about promising everyone they’d pay the London living wage, and that included for the cleaners and the security who were all on very low pay, and I congratulated them - brilliant – [but] they’ve used the crisis now to pull back from that commitment- outrageous!”

In light on the pandemic, Heathrow have instead agreed a 10% pay cut for workers represented by the trade Union Unite (including firefighters and security guards). Workers not represented by a trade Union have been told that they should either accept a 15% pay cut, or be faced with potential redundancy.

These paycuts come on the back of Heathrow giving £100 million of profit to shareholders: a pay-out the airport say was agreed in February before the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic became clear.

You can watch the whole of episode of Monday’s Tyskyshour (featuring John McDonnell) for free via the Novara Media Website.