British Airways passengers face a chaotic new year as 11,000 cabin crew prepare to strike over a dispute with senior management. The Transport and General Workers Union said its cabin crew members will vote on industrial action and could strike by the end of January, grounding many flights and causing long delays.
The T&G accused BA of capping pay by limiting promotion opportunities and forcing cabin crew to work while unwell under new sickness absence rules.
Steve Hart, the T&G's regional secretary, said: "Whilst profits and share prices rocket, cabin crew have seen their terms and conditions attacked and imposition from management rather than negotiation. They justifiably feel aggrieved and do not take this decision lightly. It is a serious breakdown of industrial relations."
The dispute comes amid threats of wider industrial action over plans to reduce BA's £2.1bn pension deficit, which entail later retirement for the airline's 45,000 employees. BA has been blighted by strike action in recent years, but its biggest cause of delays was the August terror alert, in which it lost £100m as airport security restrictions forced the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights. Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive, said other parts of the company had accepted reforms of working practices and cabin crew would have to accept the same.
"This cannot be the way forward at a time when other parts of our business have negotiated and balloted to accept new competitive ways of working. Our cabin crew care greatly about our customers and we will do all we can to protect them all from this unnecessary and unwelcome threat of industrial action."
