British Airways cabin crew vote for Christmas strike

Originally Posted by Charlie_Bubble

The details of how long and what dates were not known when the vote took place, this is why some members of staff are ok about it being cancelled now, because they know the impact it would have had over Christmas. Let's face it, they have little public support as it is, without TV pictures of people stranded in far away places over the Christmas period.

as i said before the dates and duration of any strike action or work to rule action have to be announced to the relavent company before the ballot takes place . i am reasonably sure of this but stand to be corrected

the public support for this strike was never going to be strong at any time of year it does inconvenience the public and the public hate anybody who inconvenience them for anything as trivial as workers rights ...untill it's their job on the line

Originally Posted by martyh

as i said before the dates and duration of any strike action or work to rule action have to be announced to the relavent company before the ballot takes place . i am reasonably sure of this but stand to be corrected

the public support for this strike was never going to be strong at any time of year it does inconvenience the public and the public hate anybody who inconvenience them for anything as trivial as workers rights ...untill it's their job on the line

Maybe if the Union put forward a better case. Instead of the weak one they presented.

[LondonRoad]

Originally Posted by Damien

Maybe if the Union put forward a better case. Instead of the weak one they presented.

over 90% of the people who voted thought it was a strong case. I haven't witnessed too much press coverage of their views.

[Charlie_Bubble]

Originally Posted by martyh

as i said before the dates and duration of any strike action or work to rule action have to be announced to the relavent company before the ballot takes place . i am reasonably sure of this but stand to be corrected

the public support for this strike was never going to be strong at any time of year it does inconvenience the public and the public hate anybody who inconvenience them for anything as trivial as workers rights ...untill it's their job on the line

Well, you obviously know trade union rules better than Unite's Derek Simpson, who stated last night on Five Live that the BA workers didn't know the dates when they voted. You can see how well informed the members were by this quote from this BBC News story:

One BA cabin crew worker contacted the BBC to say she was "delighted" the strike had been stopped.

"I voted for the strike but never dreamt it would be for 12 days over Christmas," she said.

"I'm delighted it's been stopped, we have the upmost respect and regard for our customers and I'm glad we have the opportunity to show this over the festive season."

[LondonRoad]

Derek Simpson doesn't know his elbow from another part of his anatomy.

[Charlie_Bubble]

Oh, Five Live also had an industrial relations expert on after Derek Simpson last night and he warned that next week there may be a very big boycott of BA by the staff, all phoning in sick, which has happened before by BA staff apparently.

Originally Posted by LondonRoad

Derek Simpson doesn't know his elbow from another part of his anatomy.

agreed, and if the person quoted by Charlie Bubble didn't have any idea when the strike was going to happen then they should be paying more attention to the meetings

this is a direct quote from the DTI's code of practice

Communication with members

36. A union should give relevant
information to its members entitled to vote
in the ballot, including (so far as
practicable):-
• the background to the ballot and the
issues to which the dispute relates;
• the nature and timing of the industrial
action the union proposes to organise

if a majority vote “Yes�;

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Chris

No judge is going to halt a strike just because an employer can find a small handful of people who shouldn't have been balloted. For BA to have won this, there must have been a substantial number of people who were not entitled to vote, and there must have been some good evidence that Unite didn't bother to take reasonable steps to avoid balloting them.

Well perhaps one judge, they found 800 max who may have voted of 13 000, 92% of the 11 000 which did vote, voted to strike, still a substantial majority even taking those into account, elections have been won and lost with less voting irregularities than that but I bet our learned friend wouldn't have a bar of that in court.

http://money.aol.com/article/results...129?v=aolrssdf

I was on the fence on this strike, normally I side with the work force but on this occassion I think a 12 day strike was way ott and something I am sure they weren't voting for, I mean who can afford to take nearly 2 weeks of? This sham of a court case has pretty much evened the score up for me though and Willy Walsh, good God everytime he opens his mouth I have more sympathy for the workers.

It's not that I have no sympathy for the workers, I just view the ploy of having a strike in the travel industry at Christmas as cynical and manipulative in the extreme.

I'd have supported such strikes at other times and in shorter timescale and spaced out more but this was the union really being uncharitable to the people whose support they really require in the future of BA if BA is to survive.

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Well perhaps one judge, they found 800 max who may have voted of 13 000, 92% of the 11 000 which did vote, voted to strike, still a substantial majority even taking those into account, elections have been won and lost with less voting irregularities than that but I bet our learned friend wouldn't have a bar of that in court.

Because it's not relevant. Either the strike ballot has been legally performed or it has not. It is not in the judge's gift to determine what may or may not have been the outcome had the irregularities been discounted.

If it has been illegally performed, then it must be set aside. Anything else is a red herring.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Chris

Because it's not relevant. Either the strike ballot has been legally performed or it has not. It is not in the judge's gift to determine what may or may not have been the outcome had the irregularities been discounted.

If it has been illegally performed, then it must be set aside. Anything else is a red herring.

Do me a favour, union ballots have more regulations than any other part of our democracy, the amount of time the strike took to organise and the time scale of the redundancies coincided, if the rules were infringed here then you can say that every vote this country has ever taken is illegitimate, trouble is when people try and point this out in the courts the cases are thrown out with cries of vexatious litigation, the judge's decision was political and imo Unite are right, a very sad day for democracy.

Originally Posted by Maggy J
It's not that I have no sympathy for the workers, I just view the ploy of having a strike in the travel industry at Christmas as cynical and manipulative in the extreme.

I'd have supported such strikes at other times and in shorter timescale and spaced out more but this was the union really being uncharitable to the people whose support they really require in the future of BA if BA is to survive.

That's the thing with strikes, they aren't designed to be convenient, more to cause maximum disruption, besides there is only one group of people to be blamed for their timescale, the people that wrecked the negotiations in late October and that'd be old Willy Walsh.

[LondonRoad]

Originally Posted by Chris

Because it's not relevant. Either the strike ballot has been legally performed or it has not. It is not in the judge's gift to determine what may or may not have been the outcome had the irregularities been discounted.

If it has been illegally performed, then it must be set aside. Anything else is a red herring.

Hang on Hang on, You seem to be moving the goalposts from your earlier post Chris

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34929581-post87.html

It's not black and white in employment law as you alluded to in that post . The judge can, and indeed should, take into account whether any irregularities would have had an affect on the overall outcome of a ballot.

As I've already said there will be always be irregularities because of the way things are. That is why it is reasonable in such instances for everything to be considered.

Assuming you agree with the expert you earlier quoted, it is reasonable for me to say that the judge in this instance has been unreasonable.

Bear in mind Chris the majority of workplaces could have ballots with less than 100 people taking part. In many places where there is a high turnover of staff it isn't that uncommon for a union, using the most up to date figures it has, to issue ballot paper to a far higher percentage of non-compliant individuals than there was in this action. That is why, imho, the judgement is wrong, undemocratic and a dangerous precedent.

---------- Post added at 17:48 ---------- Previous post was at 17:39 ----------

Originally Posted by Maggy J

It's not that I have no sympathy for the workers, I just view the ploy of having a strike in the travel industry at Christmas as cynical and manipulative in the extreme.

I'd have supported such strikes at other times and in shorter timescale and spaced out more but this was the union really being uncharitable to the people whose support they really require in the future of BA if BA is to survive.

I think, after years of management bullying and refusing to negotiate, the tactic was to get management talking to them. They have been trying very hard to talk, but Walsh sticks by his mantra of "negotiation doesn't get you anywhere".

We are not talking about left wing militants trying to bring the country to it's knees, we're talking about middle Engladn people with a genuine, unselfish, grievance.

I suspect that the reason there was such a high turnout and such an overwhelming vote for the strike was that they fully expected Walsh to come to his sense and enter some dialogue with Unite - without the precondition that his position isn't changing. Nobody really expected the strike to go ahead because it would have been so crippling to BA.

I think the high court decision is actually detrimental to BA because we now face a further period of uncertainty which will affect ticket sales while the numpty Walsh perceives this as a victory.

[Sirius]

This ongoing dispute has now taken the Stupid route. The union has said they could use the Human rights act to sue BA over the lose of the cabin crews perks

so first the cabin crews tried to bring BA to its knee's now they are going to drag BA through the court of human rights. One way to lose your jobs when you make the company lose millions.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Bus...Been_On_Strike

The union also announced it will meet BA for fresh talks at the conciliation service Acas next week in an attempt to break the deadlocked dispute.

It said in a statement: "After careful consideration, Unite believes that management's action breaches European human rights legislation.

The legal action will be on behalf of thousands of Unite members and could involve the European Court of Human Rights.

The move follows last week's rejection of the carrier's final offer in a ballot of Unite members, which has raised the threat of further strikes later in the summer.

If they do use Human rights over this it just dilutes the human rights act even further

Mmmm - free/discounted flights being a "basic human right"; don't think so.....

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by forever war

Mmmm - free/discounted flights being a "basic human right"; don't think so.....

Fully agree with you. I feel the union are trying a bit of ryanair type publicity