BA Stewards Strike - a Comment

By Richard Abernethy

March 23 2010 - Days before their strike in defence of conditions of work even began, British Airways cabin crew were flying into a storm of denunciation by government ministers, opposition politicians and the right-wing press. As if to demonstrate how completely the Labour Party has departed from its historic origins in the workers' movement, and how its very name is now a misnomer, Lord Adonis, transport secretary in the Labour government, condemned the strike by members of Unite, Britain's largest union. Prime minister Gordon Brown soon echoed his words. It could hardly have been clearer that the government was backing the corporation against the union and not even pretending to be impartial. This did not stop the Tories and their friends in the right-wing press from claiming, bizarrely, that the Labour government was somehow under the control of the unions who provide the Labour Party with much of its funding. True to his Thatcherite, union-bashing pedigree, William Hague called for BA workers to break the strike and cross picket lines.

British Airways is seeking to cut costs by removing at least one member of the cabin crew on each of its flights. On long-haul flights, this would mean a reduction from 15 or 16 people to 14. BA's chief executive Willie Walsh is determined to force this through even though the workers have proposed alternative ways of making savings. Walsh has persistently used hardline negotiating tactics: withdrawing offers already made, threatening to take away the staff benefit of free flights, and threatening to end union time and facilities.

Britain's ruling class may yet have cause to regret the way they have politicised this dispute. Simply by going ahead with a limited strike against increased workloads, the BA workers are defying the whole establishment, as well as their own employer.