Workers should categorically refuse to support the demands of airline workers for a 10% pay rise to show that the search for negotiated results for disputes is taken seriously, David Lammy said.
The shadow foreign minister said Labor should act as a governing party and that responsible governments believed in negotiation and compromise.
The party has been criticized for not supporting the RMT in the current dispute that sparked the railway strikes, but Labor leaders have rarely rejected union wage demands as firmly as Lammy in her Sunday Morning interview of the BBC.
Lammy was asked if she supported BA registration staff at Heathrow who have voted to go on strike over management’s refusal to reverse the 10% pay cut imposed during the pandemic.
“A lot of us might want a 10% increase,” Lammy said. “Actually, most people understand that you’re unlikely to get it.”
When asked directly if she supported registration staff, who are members of Unite, Lammy replied, “No, I don’t. It’s a no. It’s a categorical no.”
When asked why he would not support them, he replied: “Because I take the business of being in government seriously, and the business of being in government is for you to support the negotiation.
Referring to the rail dispute, he said: “This government is not negotiating. This government does not support reaching a compromise.”
Unite, unlike the RMT, is affiliated with the Labor Party and in the past has been its main financial support. However, Sharon Graham, who took over as general secretary last year, has harshly criticized Keir Starmer’s stance on the railway strike and hinted that funding for the work will be reduced.
Asked what would happen to Labor MPs who joined the picket lines to show their support for the RMT rail strike, Lammy said Alan Campbell, the whip in the shadows, would talk to them “and leave very clear that a serious government party does not join the pickets ”.
Some parliamentary leaders and aides were among the pickets, although Starmer’s office had explicitly ordered them to stay away.
Lammy said Labor was the workers’ party, but that didn’t mean it should automatically side with workers against employers in a dispute. While railroad workers had legitimate complaints, he suggested, there were also “working people who use trains to get to work.”
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On Tuesday, the Communications Workers Union will begin voting for striking post office workers for a 2% wage increase offer. Dave Ward, the CWU general secretary, told Sky News on Sunday that he was “disappointed” by Labor’s attitude towards unions taking industrial action.
“I think Labor has miscalculated, because I think they are obsessed with reconnecting with working people, and the reason people moved away from Labor was because of Brexit,” he said.
“I don’t think people turn their backs on working people who face these challenges because we’re all really together.”