Labour goes to war with biggest union

BA's planned strike would leave thousands of passengers with cancelled flights

Transport minister Lord Adonis condemned the planned walkout by Unite members as "totally unjustified" and said he "deplored" the action.

His tirade came amid claims that the Labour hierarchy fears the dispute could derail the party's election campaign.

Unite, a major Labour Party donor, hit back, saying the minister was "badly informed" about the long-running dispute and should be urging the airline to reinstate an offer it withdrew last week.

Privately, union officials were said to be "livid" with Lord Adonis, with one saying he had "blundered" into the dispute without knowing all the facts. It is understood the union has made representations to Downing Street about the minister's intervention.

BA cabin crews are threatening to start a three-day strike on Saturday followed by a four-day walkout on 27 March and thousands of passengers look set to have their flights cancelled. There have been dire warnings that the strike will kill off BA, bringing one of Britain's most globally recognised companies to its knees.

Opponents have asked why ministers failed to intervene in the dispute before now, alleging they are unwilling to take on the union bankrolling Labour's fights in marginal constituencies.

The Unite union has given Labour 11 million since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in June 2007 – 25 per cent of all the donations the party has received. Its political director, Charlie Whelan, is a long-time friend of Mr Brown and was his spin doctor in the early years of the Labour government.

Yesterday, Conservative chairman Eric Pickles wrote to Mr Brown demanding he condemns the strike and suspends Labour's relationship with Unite.

It was later reported the Prime Minister had already personally intervened in the dispute by calling on Tony Woodley, the joint general secretary of Unite, to discuss potential solutions.

Mr Pickles wrote: "If the Labour Party is serious about keeping Britain open for business and wants to send out the right signals internationally, you should unequivocally condemn the strike and suspend the party's financial relationship with Unite until this dispute is settled and the strikes are called off."

The move is part of a Tory counterattack on the issue of party funding following the Lord Ashcroft affair and admission that their biggest donor has avoided paying more than 100m of tax in the last decade.

Lord Adonis then gave an interview condemning Unite's proposed strike for the first time, saying it was "totally unjustified and disproportionate".

He said: "The impact this will have will not only be deeply damaging on passengers, it will threaten the very existence of British Airways.

"I deplore the strike. It is not only the damage it is going to do passengers and the inconvenience it's going to cause but also the threat it poses to one of our great companies."

However, his comments were described as empty words by the Conservatives, who pointed out that Labour had not broken its links with the union and Lord Adonis was still insisting he could not get involved to resolve the differences with BA.

Mr Pickles said: "Words come cheap and don't mask the fact that the people organising the strike and damaging British industry are the very ones paying for and running the Labour election campaign."

A Labour spokesman retorted: "It is sad the Tories are trying to politicise this issue. They don't understand trade unions."

BA officials have claimed they need to make changes to their employees' work conditions – which are some of the best in the airline industry and private sector as a whole – to help the company stay afloat in the economic crisis.

Labour also made allegations about Lord Laidlaw. The peer, who spends most of his time abroad, was the largest donor to any political party in Britain in 2007 and is currently on leave from the House of Lords.

It has emerged Lord Laidlaw has provided the Scottish Tories with 60,000-worth of rental space in a prime Edinburgh location and given a total of 3m to the party in recent years.

A Scottish Conservative spokesman pointed out the donation was not personal but from Abbey Business Centres, a UK-registered company.

UNION HELP

IN 2008, trade unions provided 52 per cent of funding for the Labour Party. In 2009, this rose to 60 per cent. In that year trade unions gave Labour 9,784,232 of the 16,220,694 it raised from other sources. The Labour Party raised 5.3 million in fourth quarter of 2009, of which 1.9m came from trade unions.