A fortnight into their strike, the middle-aged women who have led the industrial action against the summary sacking of nearly 700 co-workers have won the support of the British media - and the admiration of worker unions.

Their action is unlike anything Britain has seen in decades: it led a large number of white British Airways baggage handlers and lorry drivers to break the law and go on a solidarity strike, and forced the 'world's favourite airline' to the negotiating table.

Its genesis lies in the double-edged sword of free market, specifically the process of outsourcing and subcontracting, which enables profit-seeking company managers to scour a region - or the globe - for the cheapest manufacturing options, often driving down local labour standards.

The very process that is now benefiting parts of the Indian economy, as Western firms hire cheap Indian labour, is also the one that has led to the Heathrow dispute.

In 1997, British Airways sold off Gate Gourmet, which was its in-house catering arm. In 2003, it was taken over by a US venture capital group. Today Gate Gourmet is the second largest in-flight catering company in the world.

On August 10, Gate Gourmet sacked 670 of its workers - at least 70 per cent of them are Indian-born women - claiming they had participated in an illegal walkout over plans to change work practices.

In turn, the huge union representing the workers, the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&G), accused Gate Gourmet management of deliberately provoking the strike.

T&G members work as catering assistants, earning around 12,000 pounds a year - a very low salary by British standards - and as drivers, earning just under 16,000 pounds a year.

According to T&G, Gate Gourmet had been in talks with the union for months over plans to restructure pay and work conditions when the company brought in 120 temporary workers on Aug 10, ignoring T&G objections.

New hands, mostly Somali and East European immigrants, were reportedly hired at the rate of only six pounds an hour - lower than what the regular workers were paid.

While talks to resolve the crisis were adjourned on Wednesday, after the Gate Gourmet chairman suddenly left for the US, the striking Punjabi women have now become something of a cause celebration among British labour unions.

They have also won the support of MPs representing Southall and other areas surrounding Heathrow airport, the London suburbs where the bulk of the workforce lives.

Also highlighted has been the law on secondary strikes - such as the one by 1,000 British Airways baggage handlers and lorry drivers who struck work on August 11 and 12, leaving some 100,000 passengers stranded at the world's busiest airport.

The striking Gate Gourmet workers had shouted out in delight: "BA staff zindabad."

Under current British laws, unchanged from Conservative years, their strike was illegal, a fact that forced the T&G to distance itself from the action.

But the union's general secretary Tony Woodley now says the affair shows the need for a repeal of the law.

"The Gate Gourmet workers' case now goes beyond just an industrial dispute," he declared. "They are the focus for the trade union movement and the fight for decency and justice in the workplace."

Woodley said that elsewhere in Europe, where labour law conforms to the International Labour Organisation conventions, solidarity action is not illegal.

The workers have also won a significant legal endorsement of the right to picket.