First, the dispute. British Airways is losing money hand over fist. According to the Economist, in the nine months to the end of last year, BA lost an eye-watering £342 million. More importantly, BA is losing business to its competitors such as EasyJet, who offer cheaper no-frills flights. The response of the BA management, typical of every management faced by mounting losses, is to cut costs by reducing staff, salaries and conditions. They say that cabin crew must have their pay frozen for two years, that personnel numbers on long flights should be reduced from 15 to 14, and new staff should join on reduced terms and conditions.
The union says this is unsafe and unfair. The cabin crew are members of the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (BASSA) which is now a part of the Unite trade union. Their ballot showed solid support for strike action. Unite said that 78.77 per cent of the 11,691 ballot papers issued were returned. Of those 80.7 per cent (7,482) supported taking action with 1,789 voting against it. The cabin crew have been promised support from airline unions in the USA, Australia and across Europe. The dispute is closely tied into the internal politics of Unite. Len McCluskey, who is leading the strike, is a contender for general secretary of Unite when the current Woodley/Simpson leadership steps down. He is supported by the ‘United Left’ faction within the union. He knows a successful resolution to the dispute will put him in pole position when the election for general secretary comes.
The BA management have been making their preparations to break the strike. Willie Walsh and the BA board have been recruiting blackleg staff, including pilots, and chartering aeroplanes to replace services hit by the action. The strike will see the traditional battle for hearts and minds, with competing accounts of numbers of strikers and level of shut-down.
You can predict now what will happen. If there’s a last-minute deal, it will be no more than a flimsy sticking plaster. If the strike goes ahead, it will probably stay solid. British Airways will lose even more money, and customers will desert BA in droves, never to return. Both sides will return to the table. Some kind of compromise deal will get thrashed out, with both sides claiming a victory of sorts. It’s a dispute caused by historic changes to the industry, rather than penny-pinching bosses. Fewer people can afford a small mortgage to fly to Thailand in utter luxury; fewer businesses are willing to pay top dollar for their executives to fly around the world. More companies can use video-conferencing, and more people are willing to suffer ‘no-frills’.
And the politics? Gordon Brown will call a general election within days. His trip to Buckingham Palace is probably booked for 6 April, just after Easter. It will be the mostly tightly-fought election since 1992. It will be a calamity on a grand scale if the Labour government is seen as the ‘strikers’ friend’. The Tories have made a lame attempt to embarrass Labour over its links to Unite, but as I wrote yesterday in my column over at LabourList, the polls suggest it isn’t working.
Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis got the politics absolutely spot-on when he spoke on the Andrew Marr Show last Sunday.
He said:
“Let’s be absolutely clear, the stakes are incredibly high in this strike. And I absolutely deplore the strike – it is not only the damage it’s going to do to passengers and the inconvenience it’s going to cause, which is quite disproportionate to the issues at stake, but also the threat it poses to the future of one of our great companies in this country. It’s totally unjustified, this strike, on the merits of issues at stake, and I do call on the union to engage constructively with the company at this late stage.”
When pressed by Marr, Adonis said:
“They should call off this strike. They should get back into negotiations with British Airways again. They came very, very close to an agreement last week. So close that I believe if they could continue these negotiations in a constructive way, it would be possible to call this strike off. And I call on them to engage in those negotiations and to put the public first and to put the company first, and not to take action which not only would be deeply damaging to the economy and to the public, but which could threaten the very jobs of their members which they’re seeking to protect.”
Being on the side of the public, and against strikes which could be avoided, is exactly where a New Labour government should be right now. Andrew Adonis is an impressive Labour minister, and his instincts on this are right. Tony Woodley’s subsequent attacks on him were intemperate, ill-judged and unfair.
The Unite general secretary said:
“For an unelected person who hasn’t got a clue about this dispute, it would have been wiser for him to have kept his counsel. He’s got no industrial experience whatsoever.”
A few Labour MPs joined in, but were soon silenced when the prime minister backed his cabinet colleague. On BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour Gordon Brown said the strike was “unjustified” and “deplorable”. Deplorable is a strong word to use, but the PM always chooses his words with care. Like Adonis, he’s right.
There is an instinctive reaction amongst most Labour party people to back strike action. Few enter into an industrial dispute lightly. Most of the time strikes have worthy motives, and deserve our support. This is not one of them. It is not a strike which Unite can win. Most likely, it will be another staging post in the collapse of British Airways as a viable company. The best thing that could happen now is for the strike to be called off, and negotiations to start afresh.
No, of course we shouldn’t bee seen as the striker’s friend! LNew Labour left behind all that social justice stuff ages ago, didn’t it?
….I can understand from a tactical, get as many votes as you can perspective, Labour not backing the strikers may make sense. It may be morally dubious, but we need all the votes we can at the forthcoming election…..don’t we?
Where is ethics anyway? Just outside of London?
Paul stops short of calling on BA workers to cross the picket line but we know where his heart is.
Paul seems to think being new labour means being as close as possible to the Cameroons.
We know Paul is spending a large amount of his time with his new best friend Andrew G******,
I’m looking forward to his next piece when he outlines how we can mend our broken society by supporting marriage in the tax system!!
Paul like many people doesn’t like conflict about contracts outside the commercial sector. BA and Unite determine the conditions of employment of some BA staff. Since they are still negotiating I assume there is some basis for agreement. The proper things is to encourage parties to reach that agreement, whatever the political views of those encouraging or otherwise. If you don’t like collective bargaining then say so and suggest an alternative.
There is no right to strike in the UK. There is some short term protection for strikers over dismissal. Large organizations like order rather than disorder, and like and jointly acceptable agreement with their employees so everyone can get on with the job.
Paul why did you join the Labour Party? Clearly not to defend the most basic employment rights of ordinary hard working people in Britain and beyond. Your artilce appears to be based on the premise that BA management wished to negotaite while the union did not, this is simply not true. We all hope sense will prevail and the BA will realise that trying to strong arm their employees into alone paying the price for managment failures over a number of years is not a sustainable way forrward for a company we all want to see succeed. For a Labour minister to use the word ‘deplorable’ to describe a stinke with an 80% yes vote on a very high turnout is in itself deplorable.
Adonis stands convicted out of his own mouth on Tony Woodley’s charges. Richards claims that the Labour Government should stand shoulder to shoulder with BA against UNITE’s constructive plan to reduce costs. What a contrast with Norman Tebbit (yes Norman Tebbit)’s reasoned remarks in today’s Sunday Telegraph – “a suicide pact”. But Social Democrats like Adonis and the Gang of Four – remember Owen’s attacks on Tory moderation in the anti-trade union struggle of the mid 1980s?- have always had an ill-concealed authoritarian venom against all trade unions.
BA is NOT a national treasure, just another capitalist company. There are plenty of other airlines to employ BA staff made redundant by any bankruptcy of BA, and all trade unionists are well aware that bankrupting BA would be a fearful blow to their prospects and conditions. Do cut-price Mussolinis like Richards and Adonis think cabin staff don’t know that?
So take the millions on offer from the Unions and the members but then piss on them real new labour, I’m sure the strikers will all be voting New labour
yeah,bloody tricky for us ordinary bods who had to wait those long hard 18 years for Labour to come back,stood in muddy fields with miners and could hardly bear to look at the pain in their faces etc etc. Its always YES to “social justice ” ,but at the expense of losing the election and the social injustice that will incur at the hands of the Monster Raving Greedy Party ? Tough one.
We are a party of ‘social justice’ and that includes the right of working people working or middle class, heartland or marginal to withdraw their labour – or strike. If you ‘progressives’ fail to understand that, you may as well pack up and go home, or at least back to your thinktank comfort zones.
BTW Paul, I see your ex boss comrade Blears has failed to take heed of this article, having signed a Parliamentary motion in support of the BA strikers. You should get on to her.