Thousands of British Airways cabin crew to vote on industrial action after “performance” scheme is introduced, according to Unite
Thousands of British Airways staff are to vote on whether to take industrial action after a "performance" scheme was introduced, according to the UK's biggest union.
Unite said that around 8,800 cabin crew will vote on whether to take strike action over what it calls a new "bureaucratic" performance scheme that has led to fears over job losses.
Members of the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (BASSA), a section of Unite, will be voting for industrial action short of a strike in a bid to get management to suspend the introduction of the Dashboard Performance Management scheme.
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Unite said that in its current form this new Dashboard system means, as an employee, "you are constantly given red, green, and possibly amber based on a never ending ‘continual improvement’ score which, we believe, eventually year-on-year will become impossible to achieve."
In turn, that would give the BA management an excuse to get rid of dedicated long serving staff.
A consultative ballot has already shown that 94 per cent of BASSA members supported some form of industrial action.
The ballot for the Eurofleet and Worldwide Fleet cabin crew, based at Heathrow airport, will open on Thursday and will close on 17 August.
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Unite regional officer Matt Smith said: "A perfectly adequate performance management policy already exists. Our members have already overwhelmingly indicated they want this Dashboard system suspended until their worst fears have been allayed through meaningful consultation, with guarantees over job security.
"Quite frankly, this is an out of control human resources fantasy project and it is no surprise employees are pushing back against its ill-thought out introduction."
A BA spokesperson said: "Since launching our performance management tool for senior cabin crew we have listened to and acted on feedback from colleagues.
"We remain open to further discussion to ensure that it continues to help our crew deliver consistently outstanding service to our customers.
"We've introduced a new system which includes feedback from customers about how they are looked after on board. This sort of feedback is common in all industries. The system enables us to commend cabin crew who perform well and support those that need to improve so that we ensure our customers get the very highest standards of service."