The conciliation service ACAS has said both parties have accepted its invitation to negotiate a settlement in the row between British Airways (BA) and its mixed fleet cabin crew.
It is understood the talks will begin on Monday however one BA cabin crew member we spoke to said “They say in all the papers and news reports they want to negotiate but just cancel meetings and ignore requests from the union”.
The proposed strike on Christmas Day and Boxing day is over pay for staff that have joined the airline since 2010. BA have stated they offered a 7% pay rise but Aviation Wales have been told this is over 3 years so equates to an actual annual pay rise of around 2-2.5%.
Unite says that BA advertise a starting salary of £21,000 but in reality its £12,000 plus flight pay at £3 per hour. BA offered to increase this to £3.06 per hour in an offer the cabin crew member we spoke to described as “insulting”.
BA says it has proposed “fair and reasonable pay increase” in line with that accepted by other staff, and called the action by crew members “calculated” and “completely unnecessary”.
The BA cabin crew member we spoke to said ” We work 8 day blocks of short-haul straight into long-haul and everyone is just broke and exhausted! I’m not sure how much longer I can stay. The company is also sending out threatening emails and sending low-grade managers in to upset junior crew by telling them they won’t pass probation and will be sacked.”
If the strike goes ahead up to 40,000 journeys could be affected.