BALPA attacks BA cabin crew workers

Submitted by martin on 19 May, 2010 - 3:43 Author: David Kirk

Before the court issued its injunction against the BA strike, a letter was sent to the new business minister, Vince Cable, claiming that:

"Recent industrial action by cabin crew has further damaged BA's finances and the unprecedented strikes just announced for May and June will seriously threaten BA's ability to maintain the job security and terms and conditions of employees in all parts of the Company, including cabin crew."

The author was not, as you might expect Willie Walsh, a BA board member, or the CBI. It was Jim McAuslan, the General Secretary of the British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA).

BALPA is the largest pilots' union and a member of the TUC. When its general secretary writes: "BALPA's British Airways Company Council is gravely concerned about the consequences of BASSA's decision to announce a damaging series of four five-day strikes commencing Tuesday 18th May 2010", the union sides with the bourgeois press, government ministers and BA, not the pilots' fellow-workers.

This is a fundamental betrayal of the idea of solidarity that is the basis of the union movement. It is also ultimately self defeating. If BA's management destroys the cabin crew's organisation and imposes the planned pay cuts and job losses, then they will then find it much easier to attack the pilots' terms, conditions and organisation.

The leadership of Unite should demand that the TUC takes immediate action against BALPA for what amounts to betrayal of the basic tenets of the labour movement.

This case also shows the importance of the fight for industrial unionism, the idea that all workers within one industry regardless of grade should be organised into one union. Pilots should leave BALPA and join with their fellow workers in Unite, and the pilots and other BA workers should actively join with the cabin crew in the fight against their union busting management.

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