The Unite union left talks with British Airways at the conciliation service Acas last night to consider a last-minute offer from the airline designed to avert a third round of cabin crew strikes at the height of the summer holiday season.
Talks are expected to resume on Monday. However, union insiders indicated that the offer, which includes a guaranteed value of flying allowances for existing staff when new recruits join in the autumn, is likely to be rejected.
In the absence of a breakthrough, Unite will open its third strike ballot on Tuesday. It will run for a month, leaving open the possibility of disruption from the first week of August until the last week of October.
BA’s latest proposal includes two changes to a formal offer made in April. The first is a top-up payment to ensure that existing crew do not lose out on route allowances when 1,250 new staff join on lower wages in the coming months.
Some crew fear that they will be sidelined as the airline gives the most lucrative routes to the cheaper recruits. A system of top-up payments should provide hundreds of pounds to any staff whose variable allowances, which can make up to 60 per cent of take-home pay, fall below the average of the previous year. In 2009 the average allowance paid to long-haul crew flying from Heathrow was £16,000; for short-haul attendants the figure was £12,300.
Advertisement
The second element is the reversal of a pledge to restore cabin crew on some flights. The withdrawal of at least one crew from all BA flights last November, totalling almost 2,000 attendants, sparked the present unrest. The company’s previous offer promised to replace 184 crew on the busiest routes.
BA is expecting a formal response from the union next week. Derek Simpson, Unite’s joint general secretary, said: “While we are not at all optimistic that this offer provides a basis for resolution of the dispute, we will of course be considering it and consulting with our cabin crew representatives before making a formal response.”
Grassroots members wasted little time in condemning the offer as being too little, too late. “It is a whitewash. They are saying it is a guaranteed sum of money. The only way to guarantee it is to put it into your basic pay,” Duncan Holley, the secretary of Unite’s cabin crew wing, said. “It is an attempt to buy a few votes in the ballot. It is virtually meaningless.”
The two previous ballots were carried by majorities of 92 per cent and 81 per cent. Unite expects that its 11,000 cabin crew members will endorse another strike call. Although the core dispute remains, the latest ballot lists three grievances that have arisen during the strike period: the use of stand-in crew on strike days employed on lower terms and conditions; the withdrawal of travel concessions from strikers; and the suspension of scores of union members during the dispute.
Since March, 22 strike days have hit the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers and cost BA about £155 million.