BAA Strike Update

The dinosaurs in UNITE are still determined to have their strike, if the report in the Guardian is anything to go by (see below).

The odd thing is, BA still seems to be in a state of denial about this strike. Go to their website and look at the news page.

There is no mention of the strike there.

Do they not know about the strike?

Gaurdian Article

BAA has asked trade unions to resurrect discussions in the hope of averting proposed strikes that would ground more than 1.3 million airline passengers next month.

It is understood that Britain's largest airport operator hopes to resume talks on New Year's Eve after negotiations broke up without agreement on Thursday. However, BAA is thought to be refusing to meet the key trade union demand of reopening its final salary pension scheme to new entrants. Instead, the group is willing to offer guarantees over the pension rights of current employees, which the Unite and PCS unions believe are under threat.

Four days of strikes are due to take place on January 7, January 14, January 17 and January 18, affecting the travel plans of at least 1.3 million airline customers.

Unite represents 5,800 BAA employees including airport fire service and security staff. Airplanes are prohibited from using airports that have no functioning fire service. As a consequence BAA's seven UK airports, including Stansted and Gatwick, would be shut down during the strikes.

A BAA spokesman said:

"We will continue to do all we can to resolve the dispute. We want to engage in further discussions with Unite."

A Unite spokesman said the union wanted further talks, but reopening the pension scheme to newcomers remained the "main issue of concern", still leaving both sides at loggerheads.