O’Leary urges BA to take on union
24.02.10
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has urged BA to take on its cabin crew union, whatever the risks of a strike, but claimed the airline’s board lacks the ‘balls’ to do it. He clearly has an axe to grind on the matter, as his airline would benefit from any sustained strike and from a weaker BA, but the comments come as a passenger survey suggests that only 1 in 5 travellers back the strike, with many calling BA's cabin crew 'overpaid and underworked.'
Reacting to this week’s strike ballot by BA’s 12,000 cabin crew, Mr O’Leary said: ‘The unions need to be taken on. BA is massively over-staffed and has got to get its costs down.’ However, he said that he doubts whether BA’s board had the courage for a battle with Unite, the cabin crew union. He said: ‘I think, like most flag carriers do, they’ll wimp out at the eleventh hour. The problem for [chief executive] Willie Walsh is that the board of BA has no spine, no balls and no vision.’
‘I have some sympathy with Willie. Fundamentally his heart is in the right place but the board is useless. It’s a very political board. Are they going to allow a strike three months before a General Election? Of course not.’
Mr O’Leary also does not have much time for the union’s tactics, particularly the ultimately blocked 12-day strike over Christmas. He said: ‘They made a balls of it before Christmas. Unite – if they had any brains, which they don’t – should just have a one-day strike every two weeks. That’s enough to disrupt BA. That would cripple it.’
The travelling public is also firmly behind BA in its dispute with striking cabin crew, according to new research from Cheapflights. A total of 1,087 passengers were surveyed by the website, with the results point to overwhelming support for BA in the dispute over pay and working conditions. Only 1 in 5 backed the strike and exactly 75 percent of respondents (818 people) said they had no sympathy whatsoever for cabin crew, describing them as ‘overpaid and underworked’.
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