Unite: Delivering the most spiteful strike ever?

By David Higgerson on Dec 16, 09 12:09 AM

I must declare an interest before I continue with this blog post: I'm not going away on holiday for Christmas, and even if I was, I certainly wouldn't be able to afford to fly British Airways.

But even with that level of envy towards those who can afford to jet off with BA, I can't help but think Unite has delivered perhaps the most spiteful industrial action in recent history, if not ever.

There are some professions you have sympathy with instantly, some workforces that you're prepared to stomach personal disruption for, knowing they are fighting a good fight.

Firefighters, yes. Nurses, yes (if, indeed, they can strike.) Teachers, even, once you get beyond the "12 weeks holiday and a 3.30pm daily finish" myth.

Air hostesess, maybe not.

Even if you remove the fact the cabin crew are walking out over Christmas, it's quite hard to imagine having sympathy with them.

British Airways is expected to lose £800 million this year. Quite how a business set to lose that much remains in business is beyond me, but there you go.

Other unions with BA staff have already agreed pay cuts, but BA wanted to go further with its cabin crew.

It wanted to do such horrendous things as cut the number of crew from 14 to 13 on some flights. It also is worried about pay terms in the future. The average BA cabin crew staffer earns about £30k a year, the average Virgin flight person earns £14. The average Easyjet staffer apparently earns £20k. Whichever airline you seek to compare BA with, the staff at our national carrier aren't on a bad whack.

In fact, it's probably the reason why BA is where it is. In a more competitive market, BA can't pull prices down because costs are so high.

And while it's quite right for the unions to fight for their members' rights, for Unite big wig Len McCluskey to go on Five Live and say his union wants to bring all airlines up to BA pay and terms for its staff - as he did yesterday - is just bonkers.

Unite - which, in fairness, fights a good fight in so many other areas - is simply living in another world if it believes that BA's terms of employment are the model which other airlines will aspire too.

And the union's ignorance of this fact is what could drive BA out of business. Those 9,000 people who voted in the BA ballot won't then have a job. And who will have won then? Principles don't cover food bills, a sage at Unison told me last year.

McCluskey, who is tipped to be in the running for one of the top jobs at Unite next year, goes on to blame BA management for causing one million people having their Christmas flight plans being disrupted.

Already the stories emerge about people suffering cancer missing family reunions, friends missing weddings, couples missing dream honeymoons. Unite blames BA management for this. And while BA management could perhaps have done more to keep talking, it isn't BA which decided to hold a 12-day strike over Christmas.

A one-day strike, or a 48-hour walkout could have made the point. It's not even as if United has to hold the strike over Christmas. It announced the vote result yesterday - and has 28 days to act on it. As a journalist, my maths isn't brilliant, but I know that 28 days takes you well beyond Christmas.

Why couldn't a strike have been held in the new year?

And here's another question? Did those union reps who cheered as the results were announced - and make no mistake, regardless of what the union says, those one million people with wrecked holidays will see that as air hostesses cheering for ruined vacations - know a 12-day strike was on the cards?

If BA cabin crew can afford to go without pay for 12 days in a month while striking then they aren't going to win much sympathy from members of the public for whom just being in a job has been a luxury to many over the last 12 months.

I personally don't really care if BA survives or not, as it's out of my price range. On the odd occasion I've flown with them, I've found it a rather stuffy experience, packed full of passengers who are quick to judge others.

And that's why I don't think it is necessary for Gordon Brown to get involved in sorting this dispute out, as Riverside MP Louise Ellman suggested today.

Sure, he might win brownie point (geddit?) for saving a million holidays - but does it damage our national interests if a union representing air hostessses acts in a way best demonstrated by the computer game Lemmings?

I fail to see how announcing a strike which immediately costs a union what little public support it had, and which could push a company over the edge, is in the interests of union members.

There's something not right here. And the union leaders so quick to jump for joy at such a high vote for strike need to ask themselves: Are your actions really in the best interests of your members? If they're honest with themselves, then the answer will be no.