BA humbug: bosses and courts gang up on workers

By Andy McPake
Aberdeen SSP

The strike by Unite trade union members of  British Airways cabin crew – a strike that received 92.5% of the vote in a ballot of members - has been declared “illegal” by the courts.

The High Court called a halt to the strike as members who had taken redundancy were able to vote. This technicality is a relic of Britain’s draconian anti-Trade Union laws. Designed in the Thatcher era, the laws are intended to prevent a union from taking quick and decisive action, or, as today’s ruling would seem to indicate, any effective action at all.

This ruling will severely curtail the right of workers to strike.

In a gross understatement, Unite General Secretary Derek Simpson called the cancellation “a disgraceful day for democracy”. Even if all of the members who had taken redundancy had voted AGAINST the strike, there would still have been an overwhelming majority in favour of it.
The implications of this ruling are terrifying. Every time that a group of managers are facing a dispute in future, they will turn to their reliable friends in the courts to declare the strike illegal.

If they can do this to Unite, they can do it to ANY union.  Virtually all union ballots include a few people who have already resigned as the union receives no automatic notice of this; members need to do it themselves. As a former member of Unite, I was receiving ballot papers for elections three months after I left my job.

If this logic was applied to the rich and powerful we would not have a Parliament! Our electoral register is full of people who are not legally entitled to vote; from foreign students and people who have moved, to those who are dead. However, I do not anticipate the High Court will be declaring our expenses guzzling MPs  “illegal” anytime soon!

Any person reading the British press over the past week is likely to regard BA Cabin Crew as a collection of airborne grinches, determined to steal Christmas from Britain’s travellers. Absolutely no consideration is given to the fact that BA management’s job cuts, caused by BA management’s errors, are going to steal every Christmas for the foreseeable future from BA Staff and their dependants.

The vitriol that has been directed against the union members is awful. These workers are not ‘selfish’, as so many have called them. These are ordinary people trying to defend their livelihoods. You may ask if they could not hold their strike after Christmas; but what leverage would they have against management except at the busiest times? Would you rather they disrupted your summer holidays?

Perhaps you are even thinking that they should not strike at all. If you are, I ask you what you would do if your job was at stake? If your wages were to be slashed? Roll over like some supine fool in worship of your boss?  Or fight to defend yourself? The union used the only option that was left after all other forms of negotiation failed.

Let’s make one thing clear: British Airways Management are responsible for this strike, not the workers.