BA takes legal action in bid to stop strikes

British Airways is to take legal action in a bid to prevent a wave of strikes by its cabin crew, it was announced tonight.

The airline will seek an injunction in the High Court on Monday, just 24 hours before the first of four five-day walkouts is due to be held.

The move came just hours after the conciliation service Acas said it had asked BA and the Unite union to attend peace talks to try to break the deadlocked row over jobs, pay and staffing levels.

BA said in a statement: “The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 requires unions to send everyone eligible to vote details of the exact breakdown of the ballot result.

“This point of law was clarified in April following Network Rail’s successful application for an injunction to stop a strike by the RMT.

“We do not believe Unite properly complied with this requirement. We wrote to the general secretaries of the union yesterday asking them to explain to us how they discharged this obligation and, based on Unite’s replies, we believe that they failed to comply with the legal requirement.

“On this basis we have applied to the High Court for an injunction to stop the 20 days of strikes planned from Tuesday.

“We make no apology for looking at every option possible to protect our customers and our company from this completely unjustified strike and the union’s cynical attempts to destroy our airline.”