British Airways have declared a 12 day strike starting on the 22nd of December to the 2nd of January, this is the first walkout they have had in 12 years. Unfortunately for the costumers who have already booked their tickets a refund or other arragements look complicated due to the holiday rush. The decision came after a 92.4% of BA members voted for the action because of escalated pay and working conditions.Len McCluskey, assistant general secretary of Leaders of Unite has said:
"The problem with intransigent management is that you can push people so far, but eventually workers will say that enough is enough. We would like passengers to be angry with the company. It is something of an irony that the people responsible for making BA the best airline in the world are now engaged in a dispute."
The airline responded with:
"British Airways is extremely disappointed that Unite is planning massive disruption for hundreds of thousands of our customers over the Christmas/New Year holiday period. A 12-day strike would be completely unjustified and a huge over-reaction to the modest changes we have announced for cabin crew which are intended to help us recover from record financial losses. Unite's cynical decision betrays a total lack of concern for our customers, our business and other employees within British Airways,"
BA's chief executive Willie Walsh believes the airline needs to drastically cut cost due to the current financial condition. These 13,500 employees will cost the company tens of millions of pounds. I wonder if this strike will be worth it, and the interesting thing would be to see if British Airways can survive this, if not the union workers will cause everyone in this company to lose their job, making their actions 'suicidal'. In my opinion this action is cynical, and it also lets the costumers down. The staff from BA earn twice as much as their rival Virgin Atlantic. This means it is the best paid job in Britain in this field, as their earn around £56,000 per year.
At this moment I am very pleased I am traveling with American Airlines, I need to get home NOW and I could definitely not handle a delay !
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