Embattled airline catering firm Gate Gourmet today asked the British High Court to limit numbers of demonstrators protesting at the sacking of hundreds of workers.
The company claims its staff are being intimidated, and wants the picket of its Heathrow operations cut to 10 people.
Former staff, whose dismissal led to a wildcat British Airways sympathy strike last week, which caused chaos for thousands of passengers, have turned out in their hundreds. The firm also wants an injunction to prevent what it describes as "assaulting, threatening, intimidating, molesting or otherwise abusing employees".
The injunction, against the Transport and General Workers Union as well as 37 named individuals and "persons unknown" involved in the dispute, is being fought by the union.
David Griffiths-Jones QC, for Gate Gourmet, said: "It is an application not to prevent picketing, but to prevent unlawful aspects that we say have been associated with the picketing that has been going on at Heathrow, and which we say has been escalating to the point that it has become intolerable."
The company submitted a dossier of evidence to the court as well as a witness statement from its regional director of quality assurance, Patricia Clark.