A simple strike that forced us to question our definitions of Britishness

I wrote in last week's column that the "fixation [of the black and Asian middle classes] with identity will vanish into thin air, should the working classes who lurk in suspicion beneath them act for themselves".

And so they did. Long concealed in the remotest corners of west London, thousands of workers who make their way daily and nightly to Heathrow Airport, there to serve the mighty British Airways (all red, white and blue) for puny wages, lifted themselves up and brought civil aviation to a halt in the middle of the summer holidays.

Through strike action, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins and their offspring challenged one of Britain's great capitalist organisations, a trough in which scores of investors snout. On that fine summer's day, labour confronted capital at enormous cost to the latter, as thousands of holiday-makers sat around at the airport, directionless.

The veil fell away, and revealed before our eyes were unionised workers in finest eastern couture, chanting slogans and drawing to their cause the baggage handlers and other airport staff who are hidden from our view as we fly here, there and everywhere.

This simple strike action has forced us to question all the different intellectual definitions of Britishness. Let's take fair play. Tell me, what is fair about those wage packets? What is fair about outsourcing catering to a firm run by people who were apparently convinced that we, the new immigrant communities, could be crushed so easily?

And democracy, another virtue of Britishness, was absent when the roll was called at Heathrow. Consultation lives in the heart of democracy but not, it appears, at Heathrow Airport. Women on maternity leave, others on compassionate leave, the masses who questioned the plan to destroy shop-floor organisations built over decades - all were dismissed without consultation.

If we were to follow Hazel Blears's definition of ourselves, a news report of those events would read as follows: "Seven hundred Indian-British, Pakistani-British and Bengali-British caterers struck against Gate Gourmet, whose leadership is American-British." How ridiculous!

Try "Asian workers", Hazel Blears, and "international capital" - simple and straightforward.

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