LEADERS of the Unite trade union were campaigning for ‘peace’ with British Airways management yesterday, as a lobby of the BA Annual General Meeting in central London was joined by French and Spanish European airline workers.
Letters from Unite were handed to shareholders entering the AGM, declaring: ‘BA Shareholders – It’s time for peace’.
The letter stated: ‘It is time for a sea change in industrial relations – it’s time for cooperation, not conflict.
‘Crew are currently being balloted on whether to accept BA’s latest offer with no union recommendation to either reject or accept.’
This is a change from when the ballot was first called, when Unite stated it could not recommend the offer.
Yesterday, Brendan Gold, Unite National Secretary for Civil Aviation, told News Line: ‘We’re here to appeal to shareholders to urge management to move away from from confrontation and towards conciliation.
‘The consultative ballot on the BA offer document closes on 20th July and if members support it then that will lead to resolution of the dispute.
‘If it is rejected then we’ll give serious consideration to an industrial action ballot.’
Olivier Sekai, Vice Chair of Civil Aviation from the European Transport Federation, told News Line: ‘We’re here to bring some support before the ballot to the BA cabin crew.
‘It is an International Labour Organisation rule not to punish people for going on strike.’
Merlin Emmanuel, a member of the SNPNC union and a female cabin crew worker for Air France, told News Line: ‘We strongly support the BA cabin crew strike at Air France. We are not low cost workers, we are professional workers and our first mission on board is safety.’
Eric Monate, from the CGT union, said: ‘This is an attack on all workers. If BA wins against these workers, then other airlines will do the same. We are here to say that all the European workers support the BA workers.’
Paco Saez, a worker for Iberia Airways, the Spanish airline which is merging with BA, told News Line:
‘There are about 22,000 Iberia workers, while there are 38,000 BA, that’s 60,000 and Walsh would like to fundamentally reduce this figure.
‘There are concerns that this could well be by the Anglo-Saxon confrontation model.’
