Cabin crew angry over BA deal

A WORKER at British Airways (BA) at Heathrow told the socialist his opinion of last week's deal for cabin crew negotiated by TGWU general secretary Tony Woodley and BA chief executive Willie Walsh. "The deal was the worst possible reason for calling off the planned three day strike which would have brought BA to its knees and forced far more from them than was agreed.

"The so called 4.6% pay increase is effectively a pay cut. It operates from 1 February instead of being backdated to last October. In effect they have only eight months of the increases with four months getting no increase at all. On top of that the workers will have to pay 5% more of their wages into their pensions for no benefit whatsoever. In fact that's a 5% wage cut.

"The 'agreement' on the sick leave policy was a red herring that was made up by the management in the first place. The cabin crew was one part of the TGWU in BA that the rank and file still controlled and that is why there is so much anger amongst them".

According to The Independent, a planned mass meeting of the cabin crew with Tony Woodley has had to be postponed till next week to "allow tempers to cool"

Bill Mullins