Tony Woodley's Letter To Unite BA Cabin Crew

Dear Colleagues,
Let me first of all congratulate you on yesterday's magnificent start to the industrial action which has been forced on you. You have stood up and stood strong for your rights your dignity and your pride in the face of a bullying management and a malicious Tory media.

My message to you this morning is I know it is difficult but stay strong, be brave. Don't be intimidated. Don't let the unfair abuse get to you. Remember – Unite did not want this dispute. We don't want to hurt the travelling public or damage your employer. But you have a management which unfortunately seems to want capitulation not a negotiated settlement. Under such circumstances, your cause is just and your action is legal. You cannot be sacked for taking this strike action.

I am ashamed when I see you having to conceal your faces as you enter a union meeting to avoid identification and when you have to talk to the television with your back to the camera for fear of reprisals. Willie Walsh seems to forget he is in Britain, not Burma. He talks about respect – he should practice what he preaches.
More importantly, let me explain to you clearly – there was no negotiated agreement on offer. The take-it-or-leave-it "offer" on the table last Friday disappointed me greatly because some progress had been made and if the management team, which already had their coats on ready for a walk-out, had been prepared to continue talking a solution could have been reached. But in the event BA reverted back to imposition not negotiation.

As a leader with forty years experience as an industrial negotiator the offer was not, in my judgement and in all honesty, one I could have recommended to myself, never mind you. Specifically, it would not have given you the protection you are entitled to expect in respect of the allocation of your routes, destinations and time off and to a degree pay when "new fleet" comes in, still less your basic pay rates into the future. Additionally, we reached no agreement on dispensation to retain your democratic strike mandate as legally-valid even had we put the offer to a ballot.

It is now crucial that you all stay solid with the union, even if you are scared by management's tactics, or just conned by some of the phoney PR around the dispute. I know that the vast majority of you are supporting each other, and I pledge that your union Unite is putting all its resources and strength into supporting your dispute and securing a decent agreement.

For the few of you – and on all our information it is a small minority, contrary to the company's "spin" – who have gone into work, I ask you: Think again. Stand by your colleagues and come back to join the dispute. To those working out of Gatwick remember this: The only way in the long-term to secure and maintain decent crew levels, transfer and route opportunities and improve pay, terms and conditions is by having a strong union that can represent your interests. It will not be done by a company bribe or promises made purely to encourage strike-breaking.

To all of you, let me make it clear that this dispute will end in a negotiated settlement, and that settlement must include a framework for the reintroduction of travel concessions – not a privilege, but custom-and-practice – which BA are removing from you.

Today, I will be appealing to British Airways at board level to take matters in hand and restart negotiations to reach an agreement which would allow the strike scheduled for next weekend to be averted and put your airline on the road to recovery. I know that is what you all want, and it is what the travelling public expect. We have said all along that negotiations, not litigation, intimidation nor confrontation is the way forward. BA must understand that capitulation is not on the menu either.
\Stay strong, and I hope to be joining you on the picket line tomorrow.

Tony Woodley, joint general secretary, Unite

For all the latest updates on the BA Strike go to:

http://www.unitetheunion.com/campaigns/ba_united_we_stand.aspx