Letter to Unite BA cabin crew members
Letter to Unite BA cabin crew members from
the joint general secretary Tony Woodley
21st March 2010
Dear Colleagues,
Let me first of all congratulate you on yesterday’s magnificent
start to the industrial action which has been forced on you.
You have stood up and stood strong for your rights your dignity and
your pride in the face of a bullying management and a malicious
Tory media.
My message to you this morning is I know it is difficult but
stay strong, be brave. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t let
the unfair abuse get to you. Remember – Unite did not want
this dispute. We don’t want to hurt the travelling public or
damage your employer. But you have a management which
unfortunately seems to want capitulation not a negotiated
settlement. Under such circumstances, your cause is just and
your action is legal. You cannot be sacked for taking this
strike action.
I am ashamed when I see you having to conceal your faces as you
enter a union meeting to avoid identification and when you have to
talk to the television with your back to the camera for fear of
reprisals. Willie Walsh seems to forget he is in Britain, not
Burma. He talks about respect – he should practice what he
preaches.
More importantly, let me explain to you clearly – there was no
negotiated agreement on offer. The take-it-or-leave-it
“offer” on the table last Friday disappointed me greatly because
some progress had been made and if the management team, which
already had their coats on ready for a walk-out, had been prepared
to continue talking a solution could have been reached. But
in the event BA reverted back to imposition not negotiation.
As a leader with forty years experience as an industrial
negotiator the offer was not, in my judgement and in all honesty,
one I could have recommended to myself, never mind you.
Specifically, it would not have given you the protection you are
entitled to expect in respect of the allocation of your routes,
destinations and time off and to a degree pay when “new fleet”
comes in, still less your basic pay rates into the future.
Additionally, we reached no agreement on dispensation to retain
your democratic strike mandate as legally-valid even had we put the
offer to a ballot.
It is now crucial that you all stay solid with the union, even
if you are scared by management’s tactics, or just conned by some
of the phoney PR around the dispute. I know that the vast
majority of you are supporting each other, and I pledge that your
union Unite is putting all its resources and strength into
supporting your dispute and securing a decent agreement.
For the few of you – and on all our information it is a small
minority, contrary to the company’s “spin” – who have gone into
work, I ask you: Think again. Stand by your colleagues
and come back to join the dispute. To those working out of
Gatwick remember this: The only way in the long-term to
secure and maintain decent crew levels, transfer and route
opportunities and improve pay, terms and conditions is by having a
strong union that can represent your interests. It will not
be done by a company bribe or promises made purely to encourage
strike-breaking.
To all of you, let me make it clear that this dispute will end
in a negotiated settlement, and that settlement must include a
framework for the reintroduction of travel concessions – not a
privilege, but custom-and-practice – which BA are removing from
you.
Today, I will be appealing to British Airways at board level to
take matters in hand and restart negotiations to reach an agreement
which would allow the strike scheduled for next weekend to be
averted and put your airline on the road to recovery. I know
that is what you all want, and it is what the travelling public
expect. We have said all along that negotiations, not litigation,
intimidation nor confrontation is the way forward. BA must
understand that capitulation is not on the menu either.
Stay strong, and I hope to be joining you on the picket line
tomorrow.
Tony Woodley, joint general secretary, Unite
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