Latest British Airways strike dates

[Matt D]

The newly-announced strikes will see staff walk out for a total of 20 days.....The first strike will begin on 18 May, ending on 22 May, with the three further strikes beginning on 24 May, 30 May and 5 June

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10105863.stm

Matt

[Robert S]

In full, that's 18 to 22 May, 24 to 28 May, 30 May to 3 June, 5 to 9 June.

Really beyond belief. How long do we give BA before they simply collapse? The Union seems to be hell-bent on their kamikaze destruction of the airline - seriously, who other than die hard supporters are going to book with BA these days? I certainly regret my upcoming booking with them... they're just not worth the bother now.

Unite's leadership need their heads read.

[Michael Morrison]

Given that they only have 1 day between strikes it is effectively a strike from 18May through 9 June.

Hopefully they have enough volunteers trained up and CC willing to work that it is a non event.

[Greg McDonald]

I wonder if the same situation applies in UK as here for wages for striking workers...ie no pay while on strike.
If these workers can afford to basically be off work and without pay for 3 weeks then they're doing better financially than a lot of people I know!! I bet the morons that are employed by the union themselves aren't dropping any money!!

[Mike W]

^ exactly :confused:

[Gareth Forwood]

...who other than die hard supporters are going to book with BA these days?.

I know my parents, who have always travelled BA in the past where possible, have switched to Qantas for their next European trip. I know of many others who had travel planned and have gone with other airlines just in case this sort of thing happens again. But if no agreement is made before the strike, BA will definitely suffer!

[Saj_A]

Record loss posted by BA this morning...and a strike next week gets the new fiscal year off to a not-so-pleasant start!

[Robert S]

What an absolute farce this continues to be.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10143076.stm

For those who haven't been following, BA successfully got an injuction against the latest series of strikes, again over a minor technicality as happened at Christmas time. However this time the Union appealed and won the appeal. It was too late for the first five day strike to go ahead, but as it was at the 11th hour, it still had an impact due to BA already planning a reduced flying schedule.

The second of four strikes is still due to start tonight, with the union now desperately trying to regain the travel perks that were stripped from some members who participated in the first strikes earlier in the year. According to Unite, the core issues have long since been resolved and this is now all about the loss of perks and a few union members being stood down (which begs the question, how can they justify this level of strikes?). On the other hand, Willie Walsh says while Unite thinks they have settled the core issues, BASSA itself (the actual crew union) doesn't accept it, so it isn't really resolved. He's also having a cow at one of the Unite officials twittering details of the meetings as they happened (http://twitter.com/dereksimpsonjgs).

BA and the Unions have continued having talks, but on Saturday they had to be abandoned when protesters somehow managed to get into the building and prevented them from continuing - see the third video on the BBC article for what a ridiculous shambles that was. How the mediation authority let that happen is a wonder... but more to the point, can the crew really not see what permanent damage they are doing to their airline? :confused:

Images like that will make many normal reasonable people go elsewhere and never come back.

[Robert S]

The farce continues. The union has now set up this website:

http://www.brutish-airways.com/

They are continuing the frankly unbelievable line that this is now simply about "bullying" (which is apparently a line of argument they are putting forward without any self-awareness at all). Certainly doesn't do anything to my view that the union is pushing strikes out of all proportion to the nature of the dispute. What I hate most of all is the damage they are doing to the union movement by behaving in this manner, but that's just my opinion.

They are of course threatening even more strikes now - http://www.unitetheunion.com/campaigns/ba_united_we_stand/unite_press_releases/woodley_we_will_stand_up_to_b.aspx

[Grant Smith]

Looks like it's back on... again... This time with BAA staff set to strike...

CNN report (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/08/12/britain.airports.strike/index.html?hpt=T2#fbid=ugUOANqUkW5&wom=true)

[Robert S]

Here we go again. :(

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11866508

At least this time the union has not been so stupid as to threaten action over Christmas.