‘Spring of discontent’ could send us spiralling back into recession

IN WHAT seems to be a perverse revival of the worst of the 1970s, millions now face disruption to their travel plans as Easter approaches. Passengers booked with British Airways will be the first victims, after talks between the airline and the Unite union collapsed. A three-day walk-out of cabin crew was due to start at midnight last night, with a further four days of action scheduled to begin next Saturday, a week before Easter.

Negotiations have dragged on for 18 months. The union detects a hard- headedness in the company’s approach. But looking at the parlous state of BA’s finances and the cut-throat competition it faces, it has no alternative but to reduce costs or face serious consequences.

A total of 1,100 BA flights out of the 1,950 scheduled to operate during the first three-day strike will be cancelled. The company says that, at Heathrow, more than 60 per cent of long-haul flights will operate, though only 30 per cent of short-haul flights are expected to do so. This suggests Scottish business passengers and Scots families flying to Heathrow for long-haul connections to holiday destinations will be among those at particular risk.

But airline travellers are unlikely to be the only victims of the new wave of industrial unrest. In a separate development yesterday, railway signal workers have voted in favour of industrial action in a row over jobs and safety and more maintenance work being done at weekends. The vote was organised by the RMT, whose leader Bob Crow has long had a history of trade union militancy.

However, the vote was backed by only 54 per cent. No dates have been announced for action and, with such a narrow majority, the hope is that the union may decide to defer action while further talks are held.

Meanwhile, maintenance workers belonging to the RMT have already voted to go on strike in protest at 1,500 job losses at Network Rail, giving a threat of the biggest outbreak of industrial unrest on the railways for more than 16 years.

The proximity of the Easter holiday break does suggest an outburst of opportunistic sabre-rattling by the unions to hit transport operators ahead of one of the busiest periods of the year. It is deeply unsettling for all those who have booked to travel and who now face a combination of rail disruption and cancelled flights. It is also worrying for the Labour government, just weeks away from an election, which is facing the prospect of a “spring of discontent” similar in intention, if not in scale and cost, to the winter disputes that crippled the Callaghan government in 1979.

The unnerving question is whether resort to strike action will now become more commonplace in the weeks up to and after the election. This period is particularly attractive to the unions because they can use it obtain the maximum leverage from the threat to withdraw labour as much as the fact. But it is also sensitive for another reason. The economy is struggling to sustain a recovery, and industrial action, as envisaged, runs the risk of knocking us back into recession. Do we really want to succeed? Or are we seriously determined to fail?