British Airways is no longer the "world's favourite" carrier it once was. BA's combative boss, Willie Walsh, himself a union poacher turned tough gamekeeper at Aer Lingus, knows that better than most. That is why he is determined to cut staff costs in pursuit of a tie-up with Iberia. So BA's strategy of enforced merger from a position of weakness is one thing it has in common with Unite.
But unless its well-prepared confrontation comes unstuck – have all 1,000 would-be strikebreakers been properly trained, let alone vetted? – BA's hand is much stronger than Unite's. Is this Walsh's Murdoch-at-Wapping moment? If so, cabin crew are engaged in a modern Charge of the Trolley Brigade at 30,000 feet, workers who know that changes in the form of lower pay and worse conditions are coming.
If they were steelworkers in post-industrial, consumerist Britain, most people might simply shrug. But with an election approaching, the primary impact is political. "This a getting serious for Labour," insiders concede. BA is promising to deliver most of its passengers. But footage of Easter chaos at Heathrow is both cheaper and politically more effective than Cameron's "we can't go on like this" posters. After yesterday's news that signal staff belonging to the militant RMT transport union have joined maintenance staff in voting for strike action, possibly over Easter too, ministers must have hung their heads in despair.
White-collar staff in the TSSA union have also voted to help disrupt the railways, although they lack a pantomine villain like the RMT's shaven-headed leader, Bob Crow. Famous enough to be booed on Have I Got News For You, he relishes confrontation. It is easy to imagine Crow endorsing what is said to have been Willie Walsh's motto at the pilots' union: "A reasonable negotiator never gets anywhere." The irony is not lost on old Labour hands. State-owned air and rail industries have been privatised and the government's role marginalised. The unions have been weakened and it is unfettered capital that now throws its weight around.
Yet when it suits an anti-union Conservative party and de-unionised newspapers to demonise enfeebled Unite and Bob Crow they do not hesitate. The way things are looking this weekend it might even work too, although it remains a risk.
Michael White, the Guardian
Yet when it suits an anti-union Conservative party and de-unionised newspapers to demonise enfeebled Unite and Bob Crow they do not hesitate. The way things are looking this weekend it might even work too, although it remains a risk.
Michael White, the Guardian
