Unite's modest headquarters at Bedfont FC
On the dancefloor of Bedfont Football Club’s social club they are playing The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction”. It is the last night of the three-day strike by British Airways cabin crew, and the song nicely sums up the rebellious, upbeat mood – complete with sporadic chanting of “Willie! Willie Willie! Out! Out! Out!” There’s a festive atmosphere, which is probably why the Kronenbourg runs out later.
But under the bravado lurks a palpable climate of fear that transcends the rights or wrongs of staging a strike at the cash-burning national flag carrier. If cabin crew can be disciplined for discussing the strike on Facebook, what price talking to the media?
British Airways’ disciplinary policy is, like everything else in this strike, hotly disputed by the company and the union. Unite on Monday produced a “dossier of disgrace” declaring that, among other things, a crew member unable to attend a disciplinary hearing because they were looking after a sick child was “instructed to bring the child with her”. Infractions, they say, have been as slight as making a joke to ground services staff about whether they’re thinking or retraining as cabin crew. “Despite crew being highly distressed and in some cases hysterical on the telephone, BA has passed every single one fit to attend hearings.”
BA dismisses all the claims as “another work of fiction by Unite” (the first one being that 80 per cent of cabin crew support the strike) but the press office told me they are conducting a “significant number of disciplinary investigations”, tersely adding that “almost every individual [being investigated] has reported sick”.
Not only do the crew disagree, they tell me that it is BA doing the bullying by, for example, threatening staff who don’t come back from leave early that this will be treated as unofficial strike action. Many sickness absences, they say, are real and brought on by stress.
Away from the noisy picket lines and even angrier press releases, negotiations under TUC general secretary Brendan Barber have been going on at Congress House, which at the time of writing had ground to a halt. Although the strike was called over the reduction of staff on long-haul flights, a major bone of contention in talks has been BA’s plans to introduce a “new fleet” of crew on worse conditions, who will progressively take over routes from Unite’s Bassa branch.
Unite has refused to discuss the new fleet with the media for fear of the strike being challenged in court. But I am told that the union is trying to maintain a say in how routes are transferred, which BA refuses – perhaps in order to cherry-pick the most profitable routes for the least awkward staff. That, say cabin crew, is why Unite’s cost-saving plan was rejected.
“What they’re doing is dictating where we will or won’t be going long term, and they’ll be using the new fleet on the most lucrative routes and reducing us to the least lucrative routes”, says one. “From a cabin crew perspective and thinking that I’ve got a career ahead of me, it’s just pulling the rug under my feet. We can’t have a dispute over what’s planned for the future. We know as cabin crew that’s exactly what British Airways plan”. BA can point to thousands of non-cabin crew who took a voluntary pay cut and say tighter belts all round. But if they wanted to break the union’s grip on bargaining, it would be a good way.
Cabin crew say the planes they go back to serving this week don’t offer the service they used to. A cabin services director tells me that staffing on some long-haul flights has fallen not only by one but two or three. Senior staff have to join in serving passengers at their seats instead of providing support. “We now take longer to deliver what we used to deliver in a slick fashion. I’m quite prepared to work hard. But the people who notice the difference will be the customers.” British Airways did not comment on this.
Whoever wins, it’s hard to see how the company will not suffer from the decline in morale. Crew tell me things were different under their previous boss Rod Eddington, who steered cuts through after September 11. “People were looking at ways of saving money, nobody minded what they did for the company. They’ve now created a situation where people think: “I’m going to come to work, I’m going to do my job and I want to go”.
First person:
‘My heart is no longer in this company’
I’ve had to work for three other airlines and I’m so proud to work for BA because this is the best airline up till now I’ve worked for. You’ve got people up in the front who’ve flown for 25 years. What Willie Walsh wants is a quick fix. You can’t put that experience of a life into a short space of time.
I spoke to several crew in the last few days who were suspended. I thought maybe they’d written some vitriolic, some horrible stuff. They said they were literally just saying things like, “Ooh, do you know who’s going to be flying?” Or “I can’t believe so-and-so’s hubby isn’t here”. Just little comments like that. It wasn’t particularly vitriolic or anything. Personally speaking for myself, I find that people now are off sick with genuine sickness.
I’m sure they’d like us to go. They want to get people in who are on lower and lower wages. People who come in are on less and less and less anyway. I’ll be really honest – my heart is no longer in this company.
