Unite have announced plans for BA strike action.
These dates tally with the five days strike/24 hours off reported earlier and are likely to wreak havoc on employee’s holiday plans as well as ruining BA’s summer trade.
The strike, called by the Unite union, will start on Tuesday 18 May and run for five days. More industrial action is due to follow from 24 to 28 May, from 30 May to 3 June and from 5 to 9 June. The last day of stoppages comes only two days before the World Cup tournament is scheduled to begin and many fans have planned to travel ahead of time, which means that they are likely to face ongoing disruption.
Although flight attendants will officially work during the ‘breather’ days in between the stoppage periods, the airline is likely to find it difficult to work at full capacity on those days, effectively meaning that the action will last for 23 days. The strikes will affect traditionally busy travel periods over the spring bank holiday and school half-term holidays.
But BA is hopeful that many cabin crew will ignore the strike call and said that management was already talking to a number of other carriers about leasing extra aircraft and obtaining thousands of seats on other airlines.
Previously we reported that chairman Willie Walsh failed to meet two union demands – one to reinstate discounted travel benefits to all striking staff on an equal basis and the other to address what Unite has described as ‘draconian’ punishments for more than 50 staff facing suspension or dismissal on charges arising from the dispute.
According to the Financial Times there are hints that BA is preparing to take potential legal action against Unite. Last week, it wrote to Woodley asking if the union was preparing to strike over travel and disciplinary issues rather than the staff cuts on which it based its February ballot, which gave it a legal mandate for action.
