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The Boy
Member
Username: The_boy
Post Number: 167
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Sunday, December 20, 2009 - 05:41 pm: | |
Right to strike is being eroded, says BA union
Previous dispute at bus firm uncovered loophole seized on by lawyers in British Airways case
• Dan Milmo, transport correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 December 2009
A swath of strike ballots are in danger of being struck down under legal challenges using the same loopholes that disabled the 12-day British Airways strike.
According to sources close to active industrial disputes, a number of strike ballots involving rail and bus operators are facing legal challenges using the same arguments that won BA a surprise injunction this week.
BA's lawyers were inspired by a case against a bus strike in London last year that was ruled illegal due to irregularities in the ballot running up to industrial action. Metrobus won the legal battle using a section of the 1992 Trade Union Act that requires unions to give the company accurate voting information, including the number of employees who voted and details of their respective departments.
The revelation comes as Unite, which lost the Metrobus and BA court fights, officially informed the airline today that it will re-ballot crew members for industrial action early in the new year. In a letter to BA's head of human resources, Tony McCarthy, the union requested employee information that would enable it to provide "the most accurate information possible concerning the ballot".
An industrial relations expert said the number of injunctions secured under the 1992 act had nearly trebled over the past year. "Because the demands [under the act] are so onerous it provides a large enough canvas on which employers can look for mistakes to find the grounds for an injunction, or the threat of one. Because of the threat quite a lot of ballots have been stood down," said Prof Gregor Gall, a professor in industrial relations at the University of Hertfordshire. Including the BA case, employers have applied for at least 11 injunctions this year under the 1992 act and have been successful eight times, according to Gall. Seven of the injunctions have been sought by transport firms, and two by Royal Mail. A further 12 businesses have threatened injunctions in 2009.
A trade union source said the Metrobus case had rapidly gained notoriety within the movement as legal cases have snowballed. "When you say Metrobus in union circles people gasp, because of the ramifications of what it represented." The source added that there was now serious concern among union leaders in the wake of the BA decision that the 1992 act, brought in under a Conservative government, will gain even greater potency under a new Tory administration.
A Unite spokesman said: "People have to face up to the fact that the right to strike is being eroded."
BA's lawyers used a similar argument when they secured a high court injunction against a 12-day strike by cabin crew that would have brought the airline to a halt from next Tuesday until 2 January. Mrs Justice Cox ruled the vote unlawful after hearing that about 900 cabin crew were balloted despite taking voluntary redundancy, which meant they would not be working for the airline at the time of any industrial action. It allowed BA to neutralise a strike vote that had a 92% majority on an 80% turnout.
Marc Meryon, architect of the Metrobus case and industrial relations partner at Bircham Dyson Bell, said: "It means that unions cannot run with the argument that if they have a majority in favour of a strike, you should allow it even while overlooking technical defects."
Meryon's firm has recently advised on a number of strike polls in a range of sectors including transport. It is understood that other companies caught up in the Metrobus strike, which hit bus operators across the capital, have been able to sue Unite for compensation for organising strike action which was retrospectively unlawful. The BA and Metrobus rulings could inspire more compensation claims, because companies can sue over strikes that occurred six years ago if they discover voting irregularities.
Meanwhile, Unite is still digesting the consequences of a ruling that the union has labelled a "disastrous day for democracy". The union said in a statement today that it was minded to move "swiftly" towards a new strike ballot rather than appeal against the ruling: "Unite, while not ruling out a future appeal, is expected to move swiftly towards a fresh ballot, believing it to be the surest way to ensure members' voices are heard."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/18/british-airways-strike-ballot-rul ing
BA strike judgment is blatantly political
The injunction banning British Airways cabin crew from striking exploits anti-union law and will only ensure the dispute drags on
o Seumas Milne
o guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 December 2009
Striking workers have never had any favours from the High Court. And today's injunction outlawing this week's planned strike by British Airways' cabin crew is a classic of its kind.
Never mind the basic democratic right to withdraw your own labour, underpinned by a 92% yes vote on an 80% turnout. The anti-union laws first introduced by Margaret Thatcher and hailed by Tony Blair as "the most restrictive in the western world" mean that balloting technicalities and loopholes can routinely be exploited by employers to declare strikes unlawful.
In this case, there's not the slightest question that those mistakenly balloted half-way through taking redundancy could have changed the result. Instead, Mrs Justice Cox has made a transparently political decision to skew the balance of power still further in favour of BA's recklessly incompetent management.
No doubt she will be hailed as the judge who saved Christmas tomorrow by newspapers like the Daily Mail, which have apparently been availing themselves of BA's dirty tricks department to smear cabin crew representatives as overpaid wreckers.
And naturally many passengers with Christmas flights booked on BA will be hugely relieved that this strike has been called off.
But at best the pain has only been delayed. More than a decade ago, in one of BA's earlier bouts of industrial conflict, large numbers of cabin crew responded to threats and intimidation over planned stoppages by calling in sick instead — and caused far more disruption than the official strikers themselves.
With a far harsher management and a bullying workplace culture, that might prove more difficult this time round. But by banning this strike, the High Court has ensured the dispute will drag on, when otherwise BA management might well have been forced to settle without cancelling a single flight.
And by trying to impose fewer people, more work and less money on BA cabin crew, instead of negotiating a route out of its losses, BA's outgoing chief executive Willie Walsh has bequeathed an even deeper corporate crisis to his successor. Those who deride BA's workforce for trying to defend itself are in reality simply cheerleaders for a race to the bottom in pay and conditions.
Courtesy of Mrs Justice Cox, the cabin crew's union Unite will now organise a new strike ballot. Pencil in Easter for the next walkout.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/17/ba-strike-injunction |
The Boy
Member
Username: The_boy
Post Number: 165
Registered: 02-2009
| | Posted on Friday, December 18, 2009 - 03:55 pm: | |
Union-busting British Airways boss Willie Walsh was backed in his attack on the working conditions of 12,000 cabin crew when a High Court judge denied the workers their right to strike.
Unelected High Court judge Mrs Justice Cox, who enjoys a publicly funded salary worth more than £170,000 a year, struck down the Unite union's democratic ballot of low-paid airline staff, ruling 10,000 votes for industrial action invalid.
Ms Cox declared the massive 92 per cent vote for action on an 80 per cent turnout void, after agreeing with BA's claim that the union had committed "serious irregularities" by balloting a handful of workers who had accepted voluntary redundancy.
Airline boss Willie Walsh, who rakes in £735,000 a year - compared to the average basic wage of his cabin crew who earn just £19,000 - had insisted on ripping up union agreements to impose staff cuts, but his workforce hit back and declared a 12-day strike to begin next Tuesday.
A Unite spokeswoman said that the judge's decision was "a disgraceful day for democracy" and pledged to run the strike vote again immediately after Christmas.
Unite's lawyer John Hendy QC countered BA's claim that the union had committed "wilful, disproportionate and clearly unlawful actions," emphasising that Unite had done "everything possible" to meet the anti-union laws' stringent demands for strike ballots.
He said that the union accepted redundant members had been included in the ballot, but emphasised that BA had not told the union any details and Unite did not know how many of those redundancies were its members.
But Mr Hendy pointed out that, while the union had sought a negotiated settlement to the dispute, BA's "intransigence had compelled union members to act.
"This was an overwhelming ballot result indicating a real depth of feeling among the cabin crew members of Unite," he stressed.
"Some 13,000-odd ballot papers were distributed and there were 10,286 valid votes - of which 9,514 voted Yes to industrial action and 772 voted No - that's an absolutely overwhelming mandate."
The court's decision came as airport porters at Gatwick prepared to walk out on strike today in protest against bosses' attempts to force them to acccept a pay freeze.
Despite raking in £88 million profits last year, Interserve executives decided to award shareholders a 17 per cent rise on their dividends instead of offering its 56 staff a fair pay rise, Unite organiser Ian McCulloch revealed.
"This company is jumping on the bandwagon of the recession to exploit its workers even further," he declared.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/84666 |
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