BA cabin crew potential strike dates
The latest farce in the BA cabin crew fiasco continues, and now the UNITE Union leaders will meet later to decide whether to call strike dates.
Talks between British Airways and Unite representing BA cabin crew broke down without agreement last night, leaving the airline facing a strike as early as next Thursday.
British Airways cabin crew will go on strike for seven days on March 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29 and 30 .
Unite, the union representing 12,000 BA cabin crew, announced the strike dates today after talks with the airline broke down on Wednesday night.
If you have a flight booked
British Airways says it will inform affected customers directly by e-mail or text by using the contact details provided at the time of booking. So it is asking passengers to make sure these details are correct and up-to-date.
If people discover that their flight is cancelled because of the strike, their options are to:
Rebook onto another BA flight to the same destination within 355 days of the original date of travel.
Choose another BA flight to and from the nearest alternative airport.
Cancel the booking and get a refund.
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The airline and the cabin crew had been trying to thrash out a deal to avert the strike throughout the week.
The latest talks collapsed after a union-proposed cost-cutting package was rejected by BA.
Unite said the plans could save the airline £63m, through a combination of pay cuts and an offer for some staff to work part-time.
BA said the proposals would not save the airline £63m and “would require pay cuts for crew of between £1,000 and £2,700 a year”.
Jamie Bowden, former British Airways cabin crew manager: “The strike cannot be as effective as the union would like it to be.”
The airline said its own proposals would save £62.5m from “minor changes to onboard crew numbers and [would] involve no reduction in earnings for existing crew”.
The current dispute between BA and its cabin crew began in November last year, when BA announced plans to cut the number of cabin crew on long-haul flights, and freeze pay for two years.
But the TUC said that no deal had been reached and no further talks were planned.
TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, who had been hosting the peace talks, said: “Despite a prolonged period of negotiations it has not been possible to reach agreement between BA and Unite.
Both parties will be reflecting on the position and the TUC will be keeping in touch but at this stage no further negotiations are planned.”
The union has to give BA seven days notice of a strike, meaning a stoppage could start as soon as next Thursday if notice is given tomorrow.
Unite was believed to have submitted a proposal to BA that would save more than £60 million by a pay freeze followed by a pay cut but avoiding all the changes to working practices proposed by BA.
BA was thought to have agreed to reduce the level of staffing cuts it proposed but by a smaller amount than Unite wanted.
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