Workers' Liberty

Members of the BASSA branch of the Unite union, which represents cabin crew working for British Airways, will begin re-balloting for strike action over pay freezes and job cuts on January 25th, with results due back on February 22nd.

The re-ballot follows the decision of a High Court judge to rule illegal a previous strike ballot in which over 90% of workers, on an 80% turnout, voted to strike. Despite renewed press hysteria around the "selfishness" of the workers' campaign and tabloid speculation that they would try and "target" the Easter holidays in the same way that they had "targeted" Christmas (no suggestion that they were simply timing their action to make sure it was most effective and hit BA bosses' profits hardest), Unite has ruled out Easter break action. If the ballot is successful, a strike is expected sometime in March.

Aspirant union-busting boss Willie Walsh has already circulated a letter to all 38,000 BA workers across all grades actively encouraging them to scab. Walsh wrote: "I am asking for volunteers to back BA by training to work alongside cabin crew who choose not to support a strike, so we are ready to keep our customers flying as much as we possibly can if this strike goes ahead."

In the face of a concerted campaign against them in the press and a viciously anti-union and scab-herding boss, socialists, trade unionists and environmental activists need to offer full support and solidarity to the BA strike, which represents not only a jobs battle but the potential for workers in the aviation industry - one of the world's most polluting - to begin to stand up and have a say about how their industry is run.

With BA's pension deficit recently doubling to £3.7 billion, the strike represents not only a campaign around immediate issues (a two-year wage freeze, 1,700 job cuts and contractual changes that would reduce staffing numbers, extend working hours and effectively introduce a second-tier workforce on lower pay) but a blow to the very idea that BA's managers have a sacrosanct right to manage, no matter how poorly and no matter how they treat their workers.

BA workers voted by a massive majority - over 90% - for strike action on a huge turnout (80%). This indicates a profound depth of feeling within the workforce that will hopefully mean the dispute is solid and robust. It is also positive that Unite mobilised for the ballot through a series of mass members meetings involving thousands of workers. The footage of workers responding to the announcement of the ballot result (view it here) is truly inspiring.

Since the strike was announced, BA workers have been subject to a barrage of gutter-level demagogic abuse from vast swathes of the mainstream press. Stories have focused almost exclusively on the disruption to people's Christmas holidays (the strikes will "ruin" Christmas for a million people, apparently), relegating the actual issues behind the strike to a footnote. Even the allegedly left-of-centre Guardian ran with a headline "British Airways Christmas strike set to disrupt 1 million people", rather than anything highlighting the workers' actual grievance.

Many papers have used particularly insidious forms of emotional manipulation to whip up public hostility to the strike, focusing on the disruption caused to the holiday plans of a terminal cancer patient. These papers' commitment to upholding the rights of passengers - particularly terminally ill ones - is so thoroughgoing that their arguments imply that BA workers (and indeed presumably all workers) should never strike, just in case their action causes the least bit of inconvenience to someone who may or may not be ill.

Certainly, disruption to people's lives is to be regretted. But at whose door should the blame be laid - the workers, using the only means available to them to stand up for their rights, or the bosses who're forcing through massively unpopular changes against the wishes of their workforce?

In a move now becoming increasingly typical for bosses facing major industrial action, BA chiefs have headed to the High Court to seek an injunction against the strike. They claim that because some of the workers balloted have already accepted voluntary redundancy, they are no longer part of the relevant bargaining unit and their participation invalidates the ballot. Even if this is technically the case, these workers represent less than 10% of those who voted in the ballot; the idea that this should silence the voices of the other 9,000+ is profoundly undemocratic. Besides which, any worker - whether awaiting a response to a redundancy request or not - should be able to take part in the democratic processes of their union. Whatever decision the High Court reaches, the whole episode provides yet another example of how bosses see the "justice" system as a weapon to wield against workers.

BA's main hub is at Heathrow, but other airports including London City, Birmingham and Gatwick will also be affected. Baggage handlers at Gatwick are also set to strike over pay during the same period as the BA cabin crew, showing a glimmer of the potential for cross-sectoral action.

Heathrow, the UK's largest single site workplace, has historically been the location of some deeply significant class battles, as well as being a key focus for environmental activism due to the bitterly-opposed plans for a third runway. If this strike wins, and if it can spread to other sections of the Heathrow workforce, it can begin to pose a challenge to the rule of profit in the aviation industry - a rule which sees both workers' rights and the planet as legitimate collateral in its drive to accumulate. That challenge must necessarily take up the environmental questions too and look at how the skills of workers at Heathrow could be put to use in jobs that respect the needs of workers and our environment before the needs of capital.

Workers' Liberty members and others in the Workers' Climate Action network will be active in supporting the BA workers' strike; for information on our activities and how you can get involved, watch this space.