The vote by British Airways cabin crew to take industrial action in defence of jobs and conditions has already seen the anti-union backlash begin. It will get much worse.
Among the first out of the starting gate is The Independent’s Simon Calder with what we’ll charitably call an “opinion piece” headlined “Bumper pay deals from a bygone era threaten BA’s future”. A major irony is that the same newspaper’s staff have found themselves serially on the receiving end of much worse attacks from their management. The result is that what used to be quite a good newspaper is now a compendium of reworked agency copy, adverts, photos and filler from columnists.
Calder’s starting point is the same as that for almost all those who sell their pens for a living. Reasonable salaries, acceptable working conditions, fair pensions are not a worker’s entitlement. They are British Airways’ “extravagant cost base.” Industrial action to protect them is “crushing one million holiday dreams” rather than a justifiable resistance to allowing union busting, anti-working class profiteers like Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary set the industry standard for wages, employee rights and wages.
If you work for Ryanair you have to pay for your own training and uniform; double up as cleaner; relentlessly pester people to buy overpriced drinks and snacks. Shifts can start at three or four in the morning and you may routinely have to make do with six hours’ sleep while being responsible for the safety of everyone on board and obliged to be unspeakably chirpy. The company’s own website says that starting salaries are £250 a week. This is another form of hyper exploitation. Though to be fair they are honest about stinging you for training. “As the training is conducted by a third party provider there is a fee – the cost can be deducted from your salary during your first 12 months.”
For some reason Calder has a problem with the fact that BA staff earn more in allowances on a flight to Tokyo than Ryanair pays in a month. He also neglects to mention the detrimental impact on health that frequent disruption to sleeping patterns causes. They get paid more because it’s a difficult, physically punishing job and their union has won these benefits for them. That is cause for celebration. It’s also why any sensible person offered a choice between Ryanair and BA does not think twice about whom to fly with.
If the BA cabin crew succeed in pushing back the proposed cuts. It will be a significant victory against neo-liberalism led by a group of workers with a fifty year tradition of union organisation behind them. That’ll be quite a Christmas present.
More from Gregor Gall here.
Liam redux 
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