Loading...
Title: The Two Hundred Million Pound Strike

The Two Hundred Million Pound Strike

The 2003 British Airways Walkout

by Ed Blissett (Author)
©2021 Monographs XIV, 218 Pages
Law, Economics & Management
Series: Trade Unions. Past, Present and Future, Volume 26

Summary

This book describes and analyses the 2003 British Airways (BA) Customer Service Agents’ (CSA) 24-hour unofficial strike. It examines the lead up to the dispute, in which negotiations failed to reach an agreement over the launch of BA’s Automatic Time Recording and Integrated Airport Resource Management systems, before focusing on the dispute itself and its eventual resolution.
Central to the book is the question: why did a group of union members, the majority of whom were young women, become so incensed at an imposed change to their working practices that they took unofficial strike action? This they did in the knowledge that they could all have been legally dismissed.
In analysing the strike, the book explores why BA’s management imposed such a controversial change to working practices on the company’s busiest weekend of the year. A decision which, allegedly, cost the company two-hundred-million pounds, tarnished its reputation, and saw numerous senior managers lose their jobs.
How and why the CSAs’ three trade unions (the GMB Union, the Transport and General Workers Union and Amicus) reacted in such different ways to the unofficial strike, and then behaved so differently in the subsequent negotiations, is also central to this study.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • List of illustrations
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • Chapter 1 Introduction and précis of the dispute
  • Chapter 2 The methodological approach
  • Chapter 3 Different theoretical approaches to the study of strikes
  • Chapter 4 The causes of the 18 July 2003 strike
  • Chapter 5 The 18–19 July 2003 unofficial strike
  • Chapter 6 The 21–30 July 2003 negotiations
  • Chapter 7 The August 2003–November 2018 negotiations
  • Chapter 8 Summary, findings and conclusions
  • Appendix 1 List of participants
  • Appendix 2 The 30 July 2003, ‘Memorandum of Agreement’
  • Appendix 3 The 29 August 2003, ATR Anomaly Agreement
  • Appendix 4 The 10 April 2006 Swiping in and out, ATR Agreement
  • Bibliography
  • Index
  • Series Index

List of illustrations

Photograph 1 BA Customer Service Agents (CSAs) start their unofficial strike by walking away from the Terminal 4 check-in desks. Friday 18 July 2003. Photographer, Dennis Stone – Shutterstock.

Photograph 2 BA passengers left stranded in Terminal 1 during the CSAs’ unofficial strike. Saturday 19 July 2003. Photographer, Les Besford – Reuters.

Photograph 3 BA passengers in temporary marque outside Terminal 4. Tuesday 22 July 2003. Photographer, Matthew Fearn – PA Image/Alamy Stock.

Photograph 4 Ed Blissett (left) speaks to journalists outside the GMB Hayes Office. Monday 21 July 2003. Photographer, Johnny Green – PA Image/Alamy Stock.

Photograph 5 Rod Eddington (left) and Kevin Curran (right) speak to the media outside BA’s, Waterside, Head Office. Monday 28 July 2003. Photographer, Matthew Fearn – PA Image/Alamy Stock.

Photograph 6 Patrick O’Keefe (left), Bill Morris (centre foreground) and Matthew Campbell (right) arrive at the TUC. Wednesday 30 July 2003. Photographer, Jim Watson – AFP via Getty Images.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ed Heery and Bradon Ellem for reading chapters of this book and providing helpful comments which have contributed to its redrafting. Stephen Page also gave me considerable advice and support in undertaking my research, for which I am grateful.

I am deeply indebted to all the trade union reps, shop stewards and full-time officers, who generously gave up their time to be interviewed for this book. I am also very grateful to the BA managers who contributed to this study. The further help that many of these contributors gave in providing contact details of potential interviewees was also invaluable.

Finally, I would like to extend a special thanks to those contributors who in addition to granting me an interview also provided documentation and agreements relating to the dispute, which greatly assisted my research. I would like to credit them all individually, but as I promised to protect their identities, along with that of all other interviewees, I unfortunately cannot name them here.

Abbreviations

ACAS

Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service

Amicus

Amicus Trade Union

‘A’ Scale

Administrative Scale

ASLEF

Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen

ASTMS

Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staff

ATR

Automatic Time Recording system

AUEW

Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers

BA

British Airways

BAA

British Airports Authority

BALPA

British Airline Pilots Association

BASSA

British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association

BATUC

British Airways Trade Union Council

BEA

British European Airways

BIFU

Banking Insurance and Finance Union

BL

Broad Left

BOAC

British Overseas Airways Corporation

CEO

Chief Executive Officer

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

CSA

Customer Service Agent

DM

Duty Manager

ECI

Engineering Construction Industry

EETPU

Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunication and Plumbing Union

EPC

Employment Policy Committee

EU

European Union

EWC

European Works Council

GMB

GMB Union (formerly General, Municipal and Boilermakers Union)

GMWU

General and Municipal Workers Union

GPMU

Graphical, Paper and Media Union

GS

General Secretary

GSS

Ground Staff Services

HCS

Heathrow Customer Services

iARM

Integrated Airport Resource Management

IR

Industrial Relations and Reward (British Airways)

LCCI

London Chamber of Commerce and Industry

LHR

London Heathrow Airport

MP

Member of Parliament

NBG

National Bargaining Group

NSP

National Sectional Panel

NUM

National Union of Mineworkers

PSA

Passenger Service Agent

SOGAT

Society of Graphical and Allied Trades

STN

London Stansted Airport

TDA

Ticket Desk Agent

TGWU

Transport and General Workers Union

Details

Pages
XIV, 218
Publication Year
2021
ISBN (PDF)
9781800790681
ISBN (ePUB)
9781800790698
ISBN (MOBI)
9781800790704
ISBN (Softcover)
9781800790599
DOI
10.3726/b17660
Language
English
Publication date
2021 (March)
Keywords
Strikes British Airways resolving industrial conflict through union-management negotiations Ed Blissett The two hundred million pound strike
Published
Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2021. XIV, 218 pp., 6 b/w ill. 1 table.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Ed Blissett (Author)

Ed Blissett (PhD) is Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations at the University of Hertfordshire. Prior to taking up this post Ed was, for over twenty years, a lay activist and then a senior Regional and National officer for three of Britain’s largest trade unions. His roles included six years as the Regional and National Officer for British Airways (BA) and then four years as Regional Secretary of the GMB London Region. These positions saw him play a central part in local and national union negotiations with BA, which granted him extensive first-hand knowledge of the 2003 strike and all the negotiations that preceded and followed the unofficial walkout. His background as a senior union officer at BA also assisted him in gaining unprecedented access to the unions’ lay reps, full-time officers and the airline’s managers, who played central roles in the 2003 strike and the ensuing negotiations.

Previous

Title: The Two Hundred Million Pound Strike