Will British Airways break their flight attendants union?

by Charlie Leocha on March 26, 2010


Things aren’t looking good for flight attendants at British Airways (BA). Last weekend’s strike saw almost 60 percent of BA’s flights operating in some form or another using workers who crossed the picket lines or wet-leased aircraft from other airlines, including Ryanair.

This weekend, facing a four-day strike, BA has plans to operate 75 percent of their flights, a 25 percent increase from last weekend’s efforts. The beleaguered airline has made arrangements for 18 percent of its passengers to fly on other airlines.

BA said that, over the next four days, it would fly a full, normal schedule from Gatwick and London City Airports. At Heathrow, BA said it would operate 70% of its long-haul programme (up from 60% in the first strike period from March 20-22) and 55% of its short-haul programme (up from 30%).

In the meantime, BA reports that more flight attendants are crossing the picket lines allowing them to increase the BA flights that will operate during the coming weekend.

The flight attendants’ union, Unite, can not be happy. The British Airways CEO has also repeated his stand that any of the BA flight attendants who took part in this strike will not get staff flight privileges back as part of any settlement. This is infuriating the union leaders and has lead to charges that management is trying to break the union.

Isn’t that the point? The flight attendants’ union is trying to break BA to force them to give concessions in their contract negotiations. Now, with BA refusing to back down or come back to the bargaining table without union concessions, and evidently surviving the strike with containable damages, the airline is poised to break the union.

The CEO is determined, according to his pronouncements, to not allow this strike to go unpunished. Even if flight attendants return to their original working conditions, he claims that flight privileges will be stripped from strike participants.

Of course, the CEO doesn’t look at this as punishment. It is only making good on his threat that flight privileges would be removed from the bargaining table should the flight attendants choose to go out on strike.

Mr Walsh said the strikers knew their perks would stop and he would not ‘compromise’ on this issue. He rejected suggestions that the withdrawal of concessions was a ‘punishment’ or attempt to ‘break the union’.

Of course, BA is not being much more flexible with their passengers who are caught in the middle of the management/union fray. However, a few discounts and upgrades here and a couple of frequent miles and splits of wine there may help to salve loyal passengers’ bruises.

It won’t be so pretty for the flight attendants.

In the current economic environment, can unions make demands and strike to get their way? Or will the everyday reality keep workers’ expectations reduced to being happy that they have a job.

As British Airways appears to be gaining the upper hand in this combat with Unite, the flight attendant union, the clout of their workers is being diminished. It looks like BA is going to win this battle with their union hands down. Striking flight attendants will be worse off for this misguided adventure.

Print Friendly

Tagged as: BA, British Airways, flight attendants, strike

  • john

    I think that this strike has shown that the days of the big union being able to strike to get what they wanted are past. There are fewer union members over all and, therefore, fewer people who aren’t willing to cross a picket line.
    I think it also shows that businesses in any industry can not afford to continue to lose money year after year and stay in business. If the unions won’t “give back” what they were able negociate for during the good times, more businesses will have to risk a strike just to stay in business.

    This will be an interesting strike to watch especially the final result

  • John M

    I have to disagree with part of John’s comment, the idea that British Airways has lost money year after year is wrong. From 1996 through 2009, BA has had a net loss three times, once in 2000, 2002 and 2009. This is hardly an airline that is accustomed to losing money and certainly not one that is about to go under. Asking rank and file workers to give back when a company is making money fairly consistently, while giving bonuses to management tends to destroy employee morale and lead to bad customer service and worst of all, it is a slap in the face of the employees. This is what has happened at many of the US carriers.

    While I will agree that the current environment in the UK and the USA is very much anti-union and pro-management, I will posit that the cycle will swing the other way at some point in the next 20 years, as it always does.

    As an aside, the only times unions have been able to get what they want is when management thinks it is a good deal or when management is weak. If one reviews the history of strikes in the USA and the UK, strikes are generally resolved when one or both sides have exhausted their war chests and are willing to compromise. There are exceptions to this, either where management brings in new employees who are willing to cross the picket lines and breaks the union that way or in rare cases, management chooses to shut the company down rather than compromising.

  • TREVOR BRIDLE

    I’m not a big fan of BA, but I have traveled many times before, I thing the cabin staff, the ones that were on strike should by sacked, and made to reapply for there jobs, at the terms lade down by BA , and bankrupt the stupid union Pushing out the leaders out of work,to join Que for job seeker allowance. This will teach them a lesson, when BA staff Earn twice as more than Virgin cabin crew, All over the country people are loosing jobs, many have volunteered to take a pay cut,just to keep the company solvent .and keeping there jobs What the point of going on strike to put BA bankrupt, Every body will loose,even the us the travelling public, with BA out of the way, the prices would rise drastically.

  • Carrie Charney

    As part of the bargaining, are the CEO’s and other management foregoing their bonuses and giving back perks in order to “save” their company?

  • SirWired

    I’m neither pro nor anti-union… depending on how they are run, they can either be a good thing or a bad thing for both workers and companies.

    However, it’s somewhat disingenuous to accuse BA of trying to “break” the union. Of course they are! The whole purpose of a strike is a game of “chicken” to see who blinks first. Whether or not the Unite can survive the blinking is up to them; it’s not exactly BA’s fault that Unite didn’t really think this through. It was foolish of Unite to assume that any strike would automatically cripple the company.

    Just as the UAW how well “breaking” the Big Three auto companies worked out for them.

  • david

    This seems to be an argument over whether you need 14 or15 crew on a 747 long haul.
    The union seems to get lots of money from the Government – millions – and then gives £11m to the Labour party.

    I just wish I knew what story the union has sold to their members.

  • Richard Whewell

    I’ve not too much sympathy for BA, since their open declaration some years ago that they don’t like passengers who travel at the lowest fares! I’m in that category, since my extensive travels are at the taxpayers’ expense, and I use other really helpful airlines such as KLM and BMI. However, this strike reminds me of the last months of Sabena, when the Brussels baggage handlers decided that a strike would help their airline (in bankruptcy protection) to remain in business. It did not remain in business – as many of us remember! I rather hope that BA’s position is not so insecure, but do their staff really want passengers to continue to fly BA? Surely the history of strikes suggests that they were aimed to hurt the pockets of the greedy mill-owners, not the loyalty of the customers?

  • Frank

    Things aren’t looking good for flight attendants at British Airways (BA). Last weekend’s strike saw almost 60 percent of BA’s flights operating in some form or another using workers who crossed the picket lines or wet-leased aircraft from other airlines, including Ryanair.
    =================================================

    Sooo, 40 PERCENT of their flights were either wet-leased or CANCELLED?
    Since when is that GOOD NEWS for Management?
    On any given day in the United States, less then ONE PERCENT of flights are cancelled.

  • Pingback: Is a flight attendant strike coming? - Page 34 - FlyerTalk Forums

  • http://www.endlessgibberish.com hejustlaughs

    @Frank It’s good news because BA was still able to operate somewhat when the FAs went on strike. The aim of the strike was to cripple BA completely. It shows that a lot of the FAs do not agree with the strike and crossed picket lines.Why are you comparing this to the US when there is not a strike currently going on with US carriers?

    I hope BA breaks the union. They chose an idiotic time to strike and their group is already among one of the highest paid in the industry.

  • Janice Hough

    The battles may not be finished but I think the war is over and the union lost. BA was able to get most of their passengers to their destinations- with the help of a lot of travel agents – and it’s hard to imagine that yet another strike won’t see more workers cross the lines. And the airline will no doubt offer some sop to passengers who stay loyal. We are a “preferred” agency and 3 clients got free upgrades already…

  • Sam

    It is despicable that any Union employee that ENJOYS the benefits of hard fought union compensation should ever cross the strike line…especially in favor or to assist an arrogant ruthless monster like Willey Wonker.

    The UK and US corporate controlled GOV. have for the last 20 years become the oligarchy enemies of all workers. It is frightening clear how the two nations work in sync. Housing bubble anyone? Financial theft anyone? Union busting anyone? Shall we try outsourcing to the cheapest Third world country they can find?

    If there was any doubt in an agenda of a ONE WORLD Gov. these two nations exemplify it. I can only hope those scabs that crossed the picket line are the fist to go when people stop flying BA…I personally will NEVER step foot on another BA flight as long as that Wonker is in charge.

    With love from the USA.

Previous post:

Next post: