The strike originated in CEO Bob Ayling’s Business Efficiency Programme,
designed to cut £1 billion in BA’s costs. This affected cabin crew through new
starter rates and redesigned work loads. In the 1990s two unions represented
cabin crew at BA, the majority (10,000 members) Transport & General
Workers’ Union (TGWU) and minority (2,000 members) Cabin Crew ’89.
In 1997 BA signed an agreement with Cabin Crew ’89 which it then claimed
was binding on all staff. This left the TGWU with little option but to ballot
its members on strike action. In fact only about a quarter of TGWU cabin
crew actually went on strike; the rest went sick. BA claimed that the TGWU
The Journal of Transport History 23/1
organised the ‘sick-out’, although such a tactic would have been an admission
of weakness for any union.59 Even by British industrial dispute standards, the
levels of intimidation by BA management were widely regarded as excessive,
with even the normally conservative Daily Mail, Sun and Daily Telegraph
newspapers condemning its heavyhandedness.
............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ..................The above is just a little blast from the past.