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| BA crew vote for Christmas strike | |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| British Airways cabin crew have voted in favour of a strike over job cuts and changes to staff contracts. | British Airways cabin crew have voted in favour of a strike over job cuts and changes to staff contracts. |
| The strikes are set to begin on 22 December and run until 2 January. They are expected to cause significant disruption over the Christmas period. | |
| Cabin crew voted overwhelmingly in favour of the strike action. | Cabin crew voted overwhelmingly in favour of the strike action. |
| It follows a long dispute between the unions and BA, which is intent on cutting costs in order to survive a collapse in passenger numbers. | |
| Announcing the outcome of the vote, Len McCluskey, assistant general secretary of Unite, said it took the decision to strike with "a heavy heart". | |
| He stressed that the union was still keen to avoid the strikes through further negotiation with British Airways. | |
| The British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association, a section of Unite, echoed those sentiments in a statement. | The British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association, a section of Unite, echoed those sentiments in a statement. |
| "We are deeply saddened to have reached the point where we must take industrial action to get our voices heard, but feel that we have been left with no other choice," it said. | "We are deeply saddened to have reached the point where we must take industrial action to get our voices heard, but feel that we have been left with no other choice," it said. |
| "We do not want to cause inconvenience, so even at this late stage we offer an opportunity for disruption not to occur." | "We do not want to cause inconvenience, so even at this late stage we offer an opportunity for disruption not to occur." |
| Cuts concerns | |
| Unions are unhappy about job cuts and changes to staff contracts, which they say they have not been consulted on. | |
| Last month, BA announced plans to cut a further 1,200 jobs in an attempt to slash costs. | |
| It also wants to cut the number of cabin crew from 15 to 14 on all long-haul flights, and freeze pay for two years. | |
| Unite said that the cuts involved imposing "significant contractual changes" on cabin crew employees, resulting in extended working hours, and reduced wages for new starters. | |
| BA says it urgently needs to cut costs to ride out its dire financial situation. | |
| In the first half of the year, BA lost £292m - the worst first-half losses in the company's history. |