As unions speak with more employees about whether to hold pay strikes, industrial action at British Airways might extend broader across the UK.
At Heathrow Airport, 700 primarily check-in employees have already decided to strike during the summer vacation. However, at Gatwick, Glasgow, Manchester, and Newcastle, the GMB and Unite unions are also advising engineers and call center employees on taking action.
The statement from BA read: “We are totally committed to working together to find a solution.”
Hundreds of BA employees supported a strike against a 10% salary decrease implemented during the pandemic on Wednesday. Employees have been given a one-time payment from the airline equal to 10% of their wage, but GMB members at Heathrow want the full pay decrease to be undone.
According to BA, an “offer of a 10% payment” had been given, and “the majority of other colleagues accepted it.” According to the BBC, this includes the engineering, ground operations, and cabin crew employees, who Unite and GMB also cover.
The wider consultation ballot is separate from the Heathrow problem and addresses broader salary problems. According to a GMB representative, thousands of BA engineers at Heathrow, Gatwick, and in Scotland, as well as call center employees in Newcastle and Manchester, are currently participating in a consultative poll for potential industrial action in a salary dispute.
According to Gary Smith, the general secretary of GMB, “I don’t think this will end with customer check-in employees. Numerous members of our organization who work for BA are utterly sick of the company’s budget cuts. People want to see the pay and conditions restored since they have witnessed the company being pushed into the dirt for many years and are furious at how BA’s leadership cynically exploited the pandemic.
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The goal of the consultation is to ascertain participation and any potential actions the workforce may want to take. Before a formal vote on taking industrial action, this is the stage.
If unions for Heathrow check-in personnel and BA are unable to come to a compromise, vacationers and other travelers run the risk of having their trips disrupted. Cirium, a company that provides airline data, estimates that about 1.8 million BA passengers will depart from Heathrow in July, the start of the country’s school holidays. The summer break starts on July 1 for Scotland and Northern Ireland and ends on July 22 for schools in England and Wales.
Heathrow employees could start walking off the job as early as July 7. A corporation must get a 14-day legal notice from a union before a strike takes place. Although the unions have not yet announced the strike dates, they are anticipated to do so early next week.
BA stated: “Of course, as the situation develops, we will inform our customers about what this means for them.”
International Airlines Group, the company’s owner, has already reduced 10% of its flying schedule between March and October.
Following the Covid lockdown, when the industry had to lay off thousands of workers as international travel came to a grinding halt, airlines and airports have struggled to keep up with increased travel demand.
