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BTEC Business Level 3 Employment Law Assignment 2
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Essay of 6 pages for the course Employment Law at OCR (D2 Achieved)
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A.SUnit 14 Employment Law
Assignment 2
11/05/2021
Employment law, British Airways dispute.
In the following report, I will be explaining the key relationships between the employer and
employees in the dispute, explaining the welfare implications of the dispute, outlining the
main arguments presented by both sides in the dispute, assessing and weighing up their
claims and requirements, evaluating each side’s case and their main arguments and finally
making a final judgement about the rights and the wrongs of the dispute. For this report the
organisation I will be choosing is British Airways.
Relationships between the employer and employees in the dispute
The relationship between the employee and employer is what is also known as the
relationship between the both employer and employee. When employees and employers
have a good relationship between themselves, then the business is more like to succeed due
to both sides working cooperatively. In the workplace, when employees are happy, then this
means they are more likely to do what their contract states, so they try and work above
what is expected of them.
In order for everything to work smoothly, the employer and employee must agree if they
want to be both satisfied and work well with one another. Both parties would like to be
treated with respect, therefore, this would then mean there is a good industrial relationship
between the two. Employees would expect good and safe working conditions and
employers would expect great workers to ensure the business succeeds. If the employee
feels like they’re being mistreated in regards to working conditions, then this could possibly
result in a dispute, and in regards to this, this situation has happened in the British Airways.
In this case, with British Airways, both employee and the employer must have respect
towards eachother when working together. When a business employees new employees,
they are creating a new relationship in hopes it would not have any issues, therefore, it’s
essential to make sure it’s managed and observed in order to avoid any misunderstandings
or miscommunications. When there is a good relationship between the employer and
employee, the employee then increases their working productivity, therefore, the business
is more likely to succeed this way. In this case with British Airways, due to the industrial
dispute, they had a poor connection with their employees as well having their business’s
reputation being damaged.
British Airways have had a dispute in the year of 2009, the reason for this dispute was due
to British Airways creating redundancies, and employees being unhappy and disappointed
about this. The particular industrial dispute has been happening for a number of years,
which resulted in many problems during the process, which not only affected the employees
but also the business itself. British Airways have begun to take away more things from the
employees which caused even bigger issues during that time, which resulted in the
employees seeking for help from the trade unions. British Airways have then refused, so
therefore, the employees decided to have a democratic vote on if they should implement
, A.S
Unit 14 Employment Law
Assignment 2
11/05/2021
going on strike. The employees have requested a strike due to being unhappy and worried
about their jobs. Employees were earning just around £14,000, and due to the redundancy
process, they will not have to struggle to pay their bills and feed their families. The business
have denied the strike as they would be losing £30 million per day if it was to go ahead, and
for this reason the employees felt like they were being mistreated and not understood from
their point of view.
The situation has occurred to mainly having a poor relationship between the employer and
employee, as neither of the sides are listening to one another, the best thing to do in these
situations is having to discuss properly and try to negotiate, this can be done by hearing
both sides of the story and not just one, having to listen to both points of view. The disputes
that happen normally have a lot of consequences, depending on how far the dispute is
taken, and therefore, to keep this to a minimum, both of the employer and employees must
communicate well and come up with a conclusion.
The dispute
The British Airways dispute has begun in the year of 2009, an the result of this was due to
the company deciding to make around 1,700 redundancies on October 6 th 2009, as well as
initiate a two-year freeze beginning in 2010. This has all happened due to British Airways
deciding it’s not a requirement anymore for them to have a lot of staff members, therefore,
began implementing redundancies, as well as introducing the pay freeze, which resulted in
the cabin crews feel very unhappy. During the pay freeze, the employees will no longer be
receiving money during the two year freeze.
December 14th 2009, the employees announce a 12-day strike from December 22 nd to
January 2nd, following a 9-1 vote for the industrial action. British Airways have then refused
this action and has stated that strikes are “completely unjustified”. After the rejection by
British Airways, they after went to court and won the legal against the employees that
wanted to strike, which again resulted the employees in being even more unhappy in this
situation. Later, the high court denied the strike on December 17 th, as the ballot was said to
be illegal, therefore, if the ballot would be legal, over 1 million British Airways passengers
would have struggled to get from their location to their destination, as there would not be
enough staff members to run the business if the strike was to go ahead.
The business would have lost £30 million per day if the 12-day strike would have gone
ahead. Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley said if the negotiations failed, that there would be
another ballot. Cabin crew members were sleeping in their cars, because they couldn’t
afford to pay for petrol to drive home. When Unite was speaking for the cabin crew, they
mentioned that low pay can be a safety issue for cabin crew members. After the Union
being involved, they tried to solve this dispute and trying to keep both sides satisfied, the
offer the union offered was going to save the company more than they originally planned
(£60 million), however, British Airways have once again, rejected it.
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