British Airways Workers Ratify Furlough Deal

Members of the Unite labor union employed by British Airways have overwhelmingly voted to approve a deal to furlough 30,000 of the airline's workers, Unite announced Wednesday. Unite members voted in favor of the deal by a 99 percent margin.

The ratification comes less than a week after union leaders reached the tentative agreement with BA, under which cabin crew and ground-based employees would accept a furlough for the months of April and May. The deal, which specifies a modified version of the UK’s Covid-19 Job Retention Scheme, grants furloughed employees 80 percent of their pay and “certain allowances.”

Unlike the government plan, the BA deal places no cap on earnings. It also will allow workers to divert pension contributions into their pay for what the Unite union characterized as a short period of time. The deal also guarantees no unpaid temporary layoffs or redundancies and halts a redundancy process BA already had begun.

British Airways already has reached an agreement with its 4,000 pilots to take four weeks of unpaid leave in April and May.