British Airways Cabin Crew Vote Against Offer
UK travelers may be in for more flight chaos with British Airways this year, as the carrier’s cabin staff have rejected their most recent and final offer. Unite, the union, may now choose to ballot its members for more industrial action, which could begin as soon as September, grounding more services.
Unite is representative of nearly 11,000 of British Airways’ cabin crew. Yesterday evening they announced that 67% of their members voted against the pay deal. This has shocked a lot of people in the industry, as the agreement offered a rise of 2.9% to basic salaries next year, as well as a further 3% increase the following year. However, less than half of the union members voted on the deal. After looking at specific figures - 3,419 rejected the offer and 1,686 accepted - over 5,500 cabin crew didn’t participate in the ballot.
Now British Airways is urging Unite to sign the deal and end the dispute. They believe these figures are a positive sign, noting that the results mean that 73% of their staff didn’t reject the offer. A union spokesman says that their leaders will be meeting with cabin staff representatives to decide on what they will do next. There have already been 22 days of walkouts this year total, which has caused more than £150 million in losses for the airline.
A strike by British Airways cabin crew isn’t the only thing that air passengers have to worry about though. Earlier this week, Unite said that they plan to ballot the engineers, firefighters and security workers that work at airports in Aberdeen, Heathrow, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Southampton. So this could be troubling for the already recession-hit travel industry.
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