British Airways Taking Legal Action Over Christmas Strike

British Airways is taking legal action to stop a strike set to affect a million passengers.
British Airways Taking Legal Action Over Christmas Strike
British Airways aircraft at Heathrow. Cabin crews, in pay dispute, set to walk out for 12 days over Christmas and New Year starting 22nd December.(CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images)
Simon Veazey
12/15/2009
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/BA_94425843.jpg" alt="British Airways aircraft at Heathrow. Cabin crews, in pay dispute, set to walk out for 12 days over Christmas and New Year starting 22nd December.(CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images)" title="British Airways aircraft at Heathrow. Cabin crews, in pay dispute, set to walk out for 12 days over Christmas and New Year starting 22nd December.(CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1824690"/></a>
British Airways aircraft at Heathrow. Cabin crews, in pay dispute, set to walk out for 12 days over Christmas and New Year starting 22nd December.(CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images)
LONDON—British Airways (BA) is taking legal action in an attempt to stop a Christmas strike set to affect a million passengers and a loss of an estimated US$585 million to the company.

The airline said the vote—which saw cabin staff in Unite union overwhelmingly opt for a 12-day strike—was invalid, due to irregularities in the way it was conducted.

“We are absolutely determined to do whatever we can to protect our customers from this appalling, unjustified decision from Unite,” BA’s chief executive said in a statement. “We do not want to see a million Christmases ruined.”

“Unite was told about the problems with its ballot on Friday. Yet it cynically went ahead with an extreme, highly publicized threat to our customers and our business in the knowledge that it might not be able to carry it out.”

Unite said that cabin staff were striking over what it called “the imposition of sweeping changes to working practices.”

In a statement, Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, joint general secretaries of Unite, accused British Airways of “madhouse macho management.”

Unite says that the changes the airline wants to make, would see between one and three crew members taken off flights.

But BA’s Willie Walsh said that other areas of the company had accepted drastic changes to keep the company afloat in its most financially challenging year ever, and only cabin staff were resisting.

“Our pilots have agreed to a pay cut. Our engineers have agreed to more efficient ways of working. A third of our managers have accepted voluntary redundancy. And nearly 7,000 colleagues volunteered for salary reductions.

“Our revenue is down £1 billion (US$1.6 billion), so reducing costs is absolutely essential even to begin heading back toward profitability and long-term survival.
Simon Veazey is a UK-based journalist who has reported for The Epoch Times since 2006 on various beats, from in-depth coverage of British and European politics to web-based writing on breaking news.
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