Security staff at Heathrow Airport have called off all strikes having voted in favour of a pay deal.
Members of the Unite union had been due to walk out across nearly every weekend from mid-June until the end of August but paused their planned action on Saturday and Sunday to vote on a new proposal from Heathrow.
That offer has now been accepted.
It includes a 10% pay increase backdated to 1 January, effective from workers’ July payslip; a further pay rise of 1.5% from October; and a guaranteed inflation-linked pay increase for 2024.
Unite said the agreement is equivalent to an increase of between 15.5% and 17.5 %, depending on staff pay bands.
The deal also promises improved maternity and paternity pay, the end of switching staff between terminals without warning and the end of placing agency workers in security roles, as soon as Heathrow can.
More than 2,000 security staff from Heathrow‘s Terminal 3 and Terminal 5 were due to take industrial action along with campus security, tasked with checking all workers and worker vehicles.
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No flight cancellations were expected had the strikes gone ahead, with the airport saying previous strikes “failed to disrupt”.
The strikes at the UK’s largest airport had begun at Easter and took place over 18 days.
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Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This was a hard won victory which demonstrates what can be achieved when workers stand together and take action together.
“The pay deal at Heathrow is a further demonstration of how Unite’s complete focus on jobs, pay and conditions is having direct benefits for its members.”
A spokesperson for Heathrow said: “We can now move forward together and focus on delivering an excellent summer for our passengers.”
