Unite, the union representing British Airways Cabin Crew, Ground Staff and Engineers has told its members that it believes it is British Airways’s intention to move ahead with its original “fire and rehire” plan.
As a result, the Union has told its members that “The intention is to defend out [Sic] members by an escalation of moving towards industrial action with immediate effect.”
Unite says representatives have put forward multiple proposals to the airline in an effort to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies being proposed but the airline hasn’t budged on its original targets.
Unite also notes that British Airways has not proposed any counter-arguments to proposals put forward by the union.
The communication to members, which has been seen by us, goes on to say that “It is sad and disheartening to see that Mixed Fleet is continually being treated unfairly and differently to all other cabin crew colleagues. Considering we still do not know with certainty what any job role will look like, have not agreed the selection criteria for members to progress through the process and have not received confirmed figures of the number of jobs available at the end of this process, we are categorically against the approach the company has taken so far.”
It ends by saying “Earlier this evening you received a central Unite communication advising that due to British Airways insistence to carry out their original plan, effectively disregarding the valuable contributions for mitigation put forward thus far, it is Unite’s intention to honour their commitment of working to convince BA not to enact their fire and rehire plan.
“The intention is to defend out [Sic] members by an escalation of moving towards industrial action with immediate effect.”
It is not yet clear what action the union plans to ballot members on but past experience of conflicts between Unite and British Airways have resulted in strikes on several occasions.
Whatever it is, it is something that British Airways can ill afford in the current climate.
British Airways recently struck a deal with its Pilots that saw a reduced number of redundancies in return for an overall pay cut.
