Trolley staff to lose their jobs at Birmingham Airport
May 8 2009 by Jon Griffin, Birmingham Mail
LONG-serving trolley pushers at Birmingham International Airport face the chop – because of new £1 charges for their services.
Staff who help travellers with their baggage are being lined up for redundancy after the £1 fees were introduced at the airport last month, it was revealed today.
The new charge has led to a decline in usage by passengers and now job losses are being demanded by the new managers of the contract for trolley usage at BIA, Symonds Hydroclean.
Regional Unite official John Partridge said: “It is proposed that the number of trolley pushers should go down from 15 to 4. They are carrying out the selection criteria on May 15 and will be informing people themselves on May 18 or 19.
“We can understand that there is not going to be the same usage for the trolleys that there would have been previously, when they were free to use, but I am disappointed that it has led to this decision over redundancies.
“We are currently talking to the company about how we can minimise the effect as much as possible. The longest serving worker here has ten years service, and there are others between seven and ten years.”
The axe facing the trolley staff was revealed just days after Birmingham Airport announced it was cutting 45 jobs from BIA’s 690-strong workforce following a slump in passenger numbers in the wake of the economic downturn.
Airport bosses have warned that the number of summer travellers is expected to fall even further as the recession takes its toll on the tourism sector.
Keith Paul, Human Resources Manager with Symonds Hydroclean, based in Newport, South Wales, said: “We have been asked to manage this contract and introduce a system that has vending machines and approximately 500 trolleys.
“There used to be 1,500 trolleys so there has been a large reduction in their number and that is going to be reduced further as a result of people now paying a pound.
“We are currently in a consultation process with the unions and I cannot really comment any further.”
