BAs’ unions threaten strike action if staff are forced to leave the airline
BRITISH AIRWAYS’ (BA) staff unions were last night locked in emergency talks, following the carrier’s decision to cut 1,700 cabin crew staff.
The ubiquitous Unite union claims BA made the move without reaching an agreement, and us now threatening strikes over the Christmas period.
Earlier this week, BA said 1,000 of its cabin staff had agreed to take voluntary redundancy, with a further 3,000 moving from full to part time work – the equivalent of 1,700 full-time jobs.
Unite claims BA has told cabin crew that they must accept these cuts by 16 November or leave the company.
The airline says its staff made the decision to leave or cut working hours voluntarily.
“BA’s move is a quite natural and much needed response to failure of months of negotiations with Unite,” Howard Wheeldon at broker BGC Partners said yesterday.
“Moreover it is also a wake up call to those who earn their living by this airline of just how serious the current situation is. Time they realised then that BA does not have a sugar daddy waiting to bail them out,” he said.
But Unite, which was yesterday in talks with its umbrella branch the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (BASSA), says BA – which is on a massive cost cutting drive – is forcing staff to “pay the price for management failings”.