British Airways workers vote to strike in high summer season

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) - More than 700 British Airways workers have voted to strike during the high summer season over a pandemic wage cut.

Members of the GMB and Unite unions supported the industrial action overwhelmingly in results announced on Thursday. They will strike on dates to be announced later in the summer if the British Airways bosses do not change their minds over the main issues.

The vote result on the action came during a week when more than 40,000 railway workers are striking.

The unions demand a reverse of the 10% pay cut on workers, which was imposed during the COVID-19 lockdowns as flights were grounded; however, British Airways has offered a one-off bonus of 10% instead of going back to previous wages.

"We're extremely disappointed with the result and that the unions have chosen to take this course of action,” British Airways said in a statement.

"Despite the extremely challenging environment and losses of more than £4 billion, we made an offer of a 10% payment which was accepted by the majority of other colleagues," it added.

The airline said it is "fully committed to work together to find a solution, because to deliver for our customers and rebuild our business we have to work as a team.

"We will of course keep our customers updated about what this means for them as the situation evolves."

Meanwhile, GMB said: "With grim predictability, holidaymakers face massive disruption thanks to the pigheadedness of British Airways."

"GMB members at Heathrow have suffered untold abuse as they deal with the travel chaos caused by staff shortages and IT failures. At the same time, they've had their pay slashed during BA's callous fire and rehire policy," Nadine Houghton, GMB national officer, said.

Most of the British Airways terminals are located at Heathrow Airport, which already has had disruptions, delays and cancelations within the past weeks as the company struggles to bring back the number of workers to pre-pandemic levels.