Brittle airways

If anyone hoped for defused tensions between British Airways and the Unite cabin crew union when courts stopped a strike last Christmas, they have been disappointed.

The antagonists have been digging ever deeper trenches. Willie Walsh, BA’s pugilistic chief executive, has had 1,000 new cabin crew trained and has ample liquidity to carry the company over a strike. Unite, meanwhile, came back from its December slapdown to win a new ballot on industrial action, which it has announced will start this Saturday.

Unite leaders complain of Mr Walsh’s “union-busting” tactics. For sure, they are steadily being forced into a corner. Well prepared for a possible strike, BA seems willing to face down the union if necessary. It promptly withdrew an offer of slightly lower job cuts when Unite announced its plans for industrial action last Friday. It is unlikely to accede to the union’s demand that the proposal be put back on the table before it considers calling off the strike.

The plea to have reinstated an offer it had previously dismissed betrays how weak Unite’s hand is. The cabin crew are lone hold-outs: BA has reached agreement with other employees such as pilots – and even rising numbers of cabin crew oppose the confrontational approach. To imperil the shift to a less costly business model is to fight a losing battle. Unite knows this: it has joined two other unions in accepting an overhaul of BA’s pension scheme – necessary for the badly needed merger with Iberia.

Even Unite’s paid-up friendships are proving fickle. Despite its cosy relationship with Labour – the union has contributed £11m to the ruling party in the last three years – prime minister Gordon Brown condemns the strike plans as “not in the company’s interest ... not in the workers’ interest and ... certainly not in the national interest”.

Mr Brown’s frostiness is no act of statesmanship. In an election season he does not want the Tories to make political hay out of his union connections: voters are tired of Unite’s propensity to pick the holiday season to strike. But the appeal to the national interest gives the union an opportunity to retreat down the moral high road.

It is an opportunity it should grasp. BA is right to stand firm; indeed it has little choice. In an era of cheap flights and a public accustomed to low prices, old flag carriers can no longer live off their outmoded privileges. Nor can BA’s overpaid cabin crew.

Unite will not win this conflict. Its only choice is how much damage it will cause while it resists.