British Airways (BA) launched legal action today in a bid to halt a planned 12-day strike by its cabin crew that threatens travel disruption for a million passengers from next week.
The airline said its move was aimed at protecting its customers from the “massive stress and disruption” threatened by Unite’s decision to call a walkout from December 22nd to January 2nd.
The carrier wrote to the union highlighting “irregularities” in its strike ballot, which the company believes renders the ballot invalid.
The airline urged Unite to call off the industrial action by 2pm today but announced it had not done so, adding that it was now seeking an injunction to prevent the strike going ahead.
BA said its letter to Unite was the third it had sent the union, pointing out the balloting “flaws”, since last Friday. The union did not reply to the first two letters, said the airline.
As a back-up to the legal action, BA said its managers have been establishing which cabin crew were willing to work normally during the strike period.
Chief executive Willie Walsh said: “We are absolutely determined to do whatever we can to protect our customers from this appalling, unjustified
decision from Unite. We do not want to see a million Christmases ruined.
“Unite was told about the problems with its ballot on Friday. Yet it cynically went ahead with an extreme, highly-publicised threat to our customers
and our business in the knowledge that it might not be able to carry it out. We remain available for talks with Unite at any time without preconditions.”
Unite announced the strikes yesterday after the ballot showed a 92 per cent majority in favour of industrial action in a huge turnout of 80 per cent of the union’s 12,500 cabin crew members.
The union is protesting at the imposition of changes to crew numbers as well as a pay freeze and plans to introduce different rates of pay and conditions for new crew members.
PA