Quality | 2010.03.23
Don't blame British Airways cabin crew | Len McCluskey
It was BA\'s management who pulled the deal off the table. How does this serve the airline or staff?
Last Friday the British Airways cabin crew dispute could have been within sight of a settlement . The union, Unite, had agreed to put the airline\'s offer, on crew numbers and terms and conditions, to its members. We had also set strike dates to be activated in the event that the membership turned down the proposals, which had been squeezed out of a reluctant management after months of talks.
Barely an hour later BA boss Willie Walsh snatched the offer off the table, without a word to the union. Clearly, he did not want the cabin crew having a say, a point which has apparently escaped those politicians who have been wading in on the company\'s side . I don\'t blame Gordon Brown for trying to bring together parties to resolve the dispute, but it is unfortunate that politicians always seem to want to kick unions and employees without considering management\'s responsibilities.
Much of the political positioning seems based on the misapprehension that Unite is refusing to talk to BA. In fact we have talked the hind legs off a donkey and will talk the front legs off too, if it will help.
Some people believe it is wrong that BA cabin crew get paid more than colleagues at other airlines. According to that argument, competition among staff means levelling down pay, while boardroom competition means levelling it up. I make no apology for the fact that union-organised employees are better paid than the majority of private sector workers denied our support and protection. That\'s what we are in business for.
And cabin crew bear no responsibility for BA\'s difficulties, and should not be singled out to pay for them. It was not cabin crew who fouled up the launch of Terminal 5 , with its devastatingly bad publicity. It was not cabin crew who organised the fuel price-fixing racket which has cost BA hundreds of millions in fines. The airline\'s reputation for dirty tricks? Not cabin crew but management.
It is no surprise, then, that BA is also inept at industrial relations. But it takes a special sort of mismanagement to build on these catastrophes by then getting into a confrontation with the very people smarter airlines use as a marketing tool – the cabin crew on whom passengers depend for their safety and comfort.
Over the last few months these employees have been bullied by some of the airline\'s pilots, harassed by its managers, demonised by its PR specialists and stalked online by its internet snooping brigade. It is testimony to the determination of these "middle-England" employees that they have twice voted for industrial action to defend their dignity in the face of these tactics, worthy only of a Victorian mill owner.
But BA cabin crew have not been blind to the economic realities of the airline\'s position. They offered the company a package of savings which would have more than met their requirements – an extraordinary £60m worth of concessions. The fact that BA prefers the greater risk and cost of industrial action makes it clear that there is another agenda at work here.
This dispute is now a clash between two brands. The BA brand – a premium airline in which skilled professionals deliver a quality service for passengers. And the Willie Walsh brand – all threats, bluster and grandstanding – a brand that Walsh will no doubt wish to take on intact to his next employer, whatever the wreckage left in his wake. As Mae West nearly said, managers who are macho generally aren\'t mucho. It\'s time for calmer heads.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]5/ba-strike-unite-willie-walsh
