Who Rules Britain?

25 May 2010



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BA Strike Opening Salvo against Lib-Con Coalition?

The current five-day strike of cabin crews against British Airways is technically about cost cutting in an area of austerity. Negotiations broke down on Saturday over the invasion of the discussion site by members of the Socialist Workers Party and over one union boss using Twitter to disclose in real time the developments around the bargaining table. In reality, this might just be the opening salvo in a war between the UK's trade unions and the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition government.

Back in 1974, Conservative Prime Minister called an election over the question "Who Rules Britain?" -- the unions or the government? Given that he lost that election, it appeared that the answer was "the unions." Five years later, Margaret Thatcher became prime minister with a mission to break the unions, and after the Miners' Strike of 1983-84, she had done that. So, it is important to realize that the current strike by the "Unite" union is a pale imitation of what trade unions could do long, long ago in a United Kingdom far, far away.

There is, of course, a genuine industrial labor dispute here. BA lost £531 million in the 12 months to March. It cannot continue that indefinitely, so it must find permanent cost reductions. And as any business economist knows, staffing is a huge cost that can often be cut. One of the costs the airline wants to cut is the travel perk that staff members enjoy, whereby they can purchase a ticket at 10% of the retail price. This allows some workers to commute by air to the airline's main hubs of Heathrow and Gatwick -- many even live outside the UK.

Moreover, the number of crew members on long haul flights fell to 14 from 15 back in November, and the company introduced a 2-year pay freeze. The BBC also added, "The airline also proposed new contracts for fresh recruits and newly promoted staff. These included a single on-board management grade, no seniority, promotion on merit, and pay set at market rate plus 10%. This would still see new recruits paid significantly less than current staff. According to a 2009 survey for the Civil Aviation Authority, BA's cabin crew are well paid in industry terms with average earnings of £29,900 a year, including bonuses and allowances, compared with £14,400 at Virgin Atlantic."

However, Unite is the largest contributor to the now-opposition Labour Party, having donated £11 million to Labour over the last four years. More than 100 MPs in the previous parliament were Unite members. The Tories have promised to partially privatize the Royal Mail, and their Liberal Democrat junior partners seem eager to go along. The union representing staff is already making noise. It might just be that good old-fashioned union trouble is back to try to bring down governments again. Or is it really worth grounding 40% of BA's flights over discussions about traveling for 90% off?

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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