The Flying Bike Picket! Saturday 22 May – support the BA workers & the Right to Strike!
From Workers’ Climate Action:
On Saturday 22 May, Workers’ Climate Action will be organising a critical mass bike ride in solidarity with the BA cabin crew workers’ struggle and in defence of the right to strike.
UPDATE
British Airways bosses have once again secured a high court injunction against the strike on the basis of a technicality with the balloting process. This represents a further attack on working-class democracy and civil liberties in general; workers who voted overwhelmingly to strike are having their right to do so taken away from them and are expected to simply accept, without any option to protest or dissent, contractual changes in which they had no say whatsoever.
Judges have ruled that the BA strike, recently banned by the High Court on a balloting technicality (see here), can go ahead (see the BBC website and the Guardian website for more).
Why I went on strike
Originally posted on Facebook
Hello, let me introduce myself, I am a forty-two year old mother who has been employed by British Airways for fifteen years. I have read a lot in the media over the last year about how spoilt and overpaid BA cabin crew are, similar comments even come from my own family who have read these reports and got sucked in and believed all the simple rhetoric. I had kept quiet, silenced by fear of my bulling management but now I want to exercise my right to reply – this is my voice.
Let us start with my salary – £28,000, not bad I hear you say. I agree. A little more than the national average and that’s what I think I am worth. About average, no better and no worse. I am at the top of my pay scale and will receive no more increments. When I joined BA my starting salary was £9,000. During my time at BA I have received increments for my loyalty and experience. No different from other employees who work for BT, Police Force Personal Secretaries and Journalists to name just a few. However our argument with BA has never been about money. It is about protecting our working patterns, the product we deliver onboard and the brand that means British Airways to our passengers. We would all agree to a pay cut if it protected the things that are important to us and important to you.
Like anyone else our working conditions are governed by law and in some instances we receive better terms than required by law. An example of this would be if we worked away for six days – the law would entitle us to two days off but we get three. Do you think this is deserved? Why not? Do you work to law? Did you know that you are only entitled to 20 minutes break during your eight-hour day at work? Is this all you get? No, you wouldn’t think much of an employer if they didn’t give you a one-hour lunch break. I don’t suppose many would want to work for a company like that. Good for you. I am glad that your employer respects your needs and gives you more than the law requires. No employer should work to the law. That is just there to protect you.
Thoughts from the BA Cabin Crew Strike Picket Line
From The Third Estate
Yesterday I went down again to the Heathrow picket lines, to see how the strike is developing, and also to check out the new community garden squatted by Sipson residents and activists.
Last time I didn’t write about my journey down there. (Quick tangent: a crack-of-dawn piccadilly line farce complete with hundreds of tourists, Japanese cameras, garbled German, a replacement bus and a fortuitous chat with a CWU rep on his way to Belfast.)
This time, I arrived at the far more civilised time of midday. As I got out at Hatton Cross station, there was the same picket line with its mandatory 14 picketers. Even though this had been designated by Unite as ‘family day’ (yesterday was ‘International Solidarity Day’) there was still a limited number of supporters, this time the lone child on the side of the motorway with her Unite flag, cheering at honking cars, seemed a dismal response to such an awesomely effective strike.
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