British Airways Starts New Talks

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New talks between British Airways and two trade unions started on Wednesday, July 8. These talks took place at the offices of the UK arbitration service ACAS over the airlines demand for redundancies, changes in working conditions, as well as a pay freeze.

A spokeswomen for Unite, which is the largest union at British Airways with more than 28,000 members, said that she expected these talks to be a long road. However, she did add that the main thing to look at right now is that at least both sides are back at the table now.

The first talks that got started between British Airways and its two biggest union groups broke down. This happened after the union and British Airways failed to agree on a package by the airline’s deadline of June 30. This failure left the threat of a huge strike hanging overhead of the airline. This strike would have hit just before the holiday season got underway.

A meeting that took place between 2,000 Unite members on July 6 overwhelmingly rejected the British Airways package and backed the union’s plan, which still saved the airline around £130 million a year. The CEO of British Airways, Willie Walsh, said that the company is fighting for survival, and he wants 3,700 redundancies from its 40,000 plus workforce. On top of that, he wants the rest to accept a two year pay freeze and a change in all working conditions.

British Airways has said very little since the talks broke down, and it called on ACAS to intervene. British Airways did reach an agreement with Balpa, which is the pilots union, over a pay cut which did save the company about £26 million a year.

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