The agreement was signed by representatives of the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU), the large industrial union Amicus, and the General, Municipal, and Boilermakers’ Union (GMB).

Concerns over the issues of shifts and hours prompted a two-day wildcat strike by the workers July 18-19, after the company threatened to immediately bring in a card-based automatic time recording system.

“A few days before the walkout, management told us they were going to introduce the new system and we had to go along with it,” said one check-in worker in an August 2 interview at London’s Heathrow airport. The BA bosses have threatened employees with disciplinary action, including sacking, if they speak publicly on the dispute.

Workers explained that the new system would allow managers to use the company’s computer network to track staff movements and attendance records.

One said, “the annualization of hours means that you wouldn’t be able to take your holiday in the peak season,” and that “you could be sent home in the middle of your shift, and be told to come back on your day off to make up the hours.”

Union members had never opposed the swipe cards in principle, said TGWU official Bill Morris, but were “determined that information gathered on the cards could not be used to undermine the terms and conditions of employees.”

GMB general secretary Kevin Curran said, “it’s a 21st century dispute where low-paid, mainly women workers stood up and demanded dignity, respect, and consultation from their employer.”  
 
Bosses react to workers’ intransigence
The bosses reacted bitterly to the workers’ intransigent stand. One unnamed “senior source” told the London Times that the unionists opposed the job cuts and swipe-card system in order “to protect widespread featherbedding”—what the bosses consider to be “superfluous” jobs. The source accused the workers of “exactly the same stuff that used to go on at Fleet Street,” a reference to the newspaper industry, where workers faced mass layoffs in the “restructuring” of the newspaper industry during the 1980s.

In discussions with Militant reporters, workers made it clear that defense of jobs is at the heart of the ongoing fight with BA. Fifty check-in and sales workers had been cut from each of the two shifts already, while the remaining workers have to check in and deal with more flights. One said, “many of the job cuts and cost cutting that BA wanted to implement anyway has been blamed on 9/11 and the SARS outbreak.”

On June 30 BA posted a £45 million pre-tax loss for the first quarter, compared with a £65 million profit during the same period last year. Chief Executive Roderick Eddington said, “the airline must continue to modernize. We have taken 11,000 jobs out of the business, but we still have some way to go and we must press on.” The Telegraph reported, “BA is on course to cut 13,000 jobs by the year end, but Mr Eddington hinted that if there was no revenue improvement, that may not be enough.”

Meanwhile, TGWU members who work at Swissport, a ground handling company at Heathrow, are set to vote on whether to strike over new criteria that the company has imposed in order to cut jobs. Under the new system, workers at Swissport can be sacked based upon the number of disciplinary, sick, and late days they have amassed, as well as the bosses’ assessment of their “flexibility,” “cooperation with management,” and “ability to change.”  
 
 
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