A MASS meeting of more than 3,000 British Airways cabin crew workers yesterday threw out by a massive majority the airline’s plans to slash costs by sacking thousands of workers, freezing pay, outsourcing work, ending the redeployment agreement for those made redundant, and abolishing the hard fought for terms and conditions of service of the staff.
Conciliation service Acas will chair a meeting between BA and the unions on Wednesday to try to reach an agreement.
The company had set a deadline of June 30 to reach a deal on 4,500 job cuts, and other major changes, but there is no agreement.
BA want to introduce a new, ‘starter rate’ of £11,000, just over £200 a week and introduce a two-tier workforce.
Last month, BA wrote to all 40,000 workers and asked them to volunteer to work for one month for nothing.
Despite the fact that the Unite union did not issue an instruction that union members must not work for nothing, only 800 workers volunteered to work as a slave for up to a month.
A Unite spokesman admitted yesterday: ‘Our members have shown that feelings are running very high. They have sent a very clear message that they don’t want us to make any further concessions that would lead to an assault on their terms and conditions.’
BA workers must get ready for strike action, and get ready for a struggle to win the renationalisation of BA, which is the only way to keep the airline afloat, and to keep the wages and conditions that workers have built up over the years.
The alternative to this can be seen with Ryanair, one of the leading exponents of the race to the bottom, junking jobs, wages, conditions and airline passenger comfort.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has told Sky News that he was considering ripping out the back few rows of seats on some Ryanair flights so that passengers would be able to sit on bar stools, or stand up for flights lasting less than an hour and a half, that would take them to most European capitals.
O’Leary added that he had asked Boeing to look at the possibility of converting its planes or delivering a new fleet with ‘vertical seating’. This would be no different to ‘what happens on trains where you see thousands of people who cannot get a seat standing in the aisles, and it happens regularly on the Underground.’
O’Leary said he got the idea from a Chinese airline which said it could squeeze 50% more passengers on board and cut costs by 20%.
This is ‘progress’ under capitalism.
Airlines where planes take off and land with passengers standing, presumably strapped to rails, where they pay to go to the toilet, and where cabin crew have the impossible task of trying to see that passengers are safe – all to make a profit!
This is not the future: it is a catastrophe that is already being planned, by those that are setting the pace for air travel in the conditions of the capitalist slump.
It is crystal clear that safe and comfortable air travel, for passengers and cabin crew, is not what crisis-ridden capitalism has on offer.
The only way forward for air travel is through the development of a nationalised and integrated transport system bringing together air, road and rail transport as an integrated and planned whole, that can guarantee safe and comfortable travel, as well as well paid and satisfying careers for aircrew and all transport workers.
Modern transport does not go hand in hand with slump-ridden, profit-crazy, stop-at-nothing capitalism.
BA workers are right to defend their jobs, wages and conditions of service. They are right to prepare for strike action.
They must unite with all the transport unions to defend their basic rights and fight for the nationalisation and integration of the transport industries.