British Airways Urged to Return to Negotiations By Unite Union

Once again, maybe in an attempt to look like the good guy, the Unite union has urged British Airways to return to the negotiating table. The overall aim of this would be to avoid the strike action that is scheduled for the end of this week.

Just last week the Unite union, which represents about 12,000 cabin crew at the British flag carrier, announced it would begin industrial action later on this month. Staff are expect to walk out for three days on March 20^rd. After this, the staff will strike for another four days starting March 27^th.

On BBC Radio 4 early yesterday morning, the Unite Joint general secretary, Tony Woodly, said what they need to do is put the offer on the table. Let’s get 100 percent of these flights flying and get serious negotiations off the ground again. This is an offer that he wanted to make publicly.

Just following the strike announcement, British Airways withdrew a formal offer to unions. However, Mr Woodly said it had not been made clear that British Airway’s offer would be withdrawn if the union followed through with the strike. Mr Woodly finished up by saying that, if British Airways put the offer back on the table that they had last week, then they could postpone the dispute and get into real serious talks to solve the problem.

British Airways, after announcing contingency plans yesterday, said that they still are available to hold further talks with the union in order to advert the strikes. British Airways also confirmed that it will still be able to get about 60 percent of its flights off the ground despite the strike threat from the cabin crew.