Industry | 2009.12.18
Letters: Dispute over BA strike decision
The high-court decision to grant an injunction against Unite ( BA Christmas strike blocked , 18 December) over its strike ballot at British Airways sets two dangerous legal precedents. First, for a judge to take into account the level of disruption ensuing from the action is not one that has a basis in law. A judge has to look at the technical competence of the ballot and whether due diligence was taken by the union in conducting the ballot. This primarily means: were all the types and locations of workers that are likely to strike notified to the employer?
Second, the number of those voting in the ballot who are no longer employed by the company could not have materially affected the outcome of the ballot. To judge otherwise is to interpret the law in a new way, for it is always the case that some workers who voted in a ballot may not be around to take part in any strike action.
The law governing industrial action ballots was already onerous, despite some well-intentioned recent reform by Labour after lobbying from unions. This interpretation in the BA case tightens the screw even more, substantiating Unite\'s claim that the ruling was a disgraceful day for democracy.
University of Hertfordshire
• Thank you for your unbiased reporting on the situation within BA. That the airline is deeply in turmoil is obvious to even the most naive traveller: the Terminal Five opening debacle , lost-baggage mountains, price-fixing scandals and disastrous fuel-price hedging. Only when the public see their own workplace terms and conditions eroded will they spare a thought for BA cabin crew. And remember this: the dispute has never been about saving money; our union offered BA all it asked for, and then some. This is about control.
As a long-serving BA cabin service director, I would like to make the point to our passengers that this is not simply about money for us. We are hugely concerned about safety. Fewer crew members on board has serious implications for our abilities to carry out mandatory safety-related duties, yet we are forced daily to attempt to comply to the same standards with fewer crew.
So next time you go to buy a ticket with British Airways, remember that the cabin crew so vilified and undermined by their own employer have also been attempting to ensure the best is maintained for you!
Name and address supplied
• The decision to deem the BA strike illegal by Justice Cox clearly didn\'t go down too well everywhere. The weather obviously sided with the strikers, as Heathrow and Gatwick were closed by snow . Divine intervention?
John Holroyd
Dumfries
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/[...]rways-cabin-crew-strike-ruling
Instagram is adding automatic in-app text translation - The Verge views: 1524
Here’s a ‘Brand-New’ Massive Multilingual Dataset for Machine Translation views: 1517