British Airways cabin crew are now going to be voting on a new strike ballot as of January 22^nd. This is a move that is going to attempt to strengthen the trade union’s position during the talks with the airline. The union thinks that the fear of a strike may make British Airways more likely to cave in to demands.

The voting is expected to take around a month to completely finish. That means that the strike action could start as of March 1^st if the estimated 12,700 crew members that are affiliated with this union deem it necessary.

The Unite union said that it has made it perfectly clear that preparations for a ballot are underway, and talks at the TUC are continuing. The union’s aviation officers, Steve Turner and Brian Boyd, said that they are determined to hold a new ballot after a strong vote in favor of industrial action was ruled unlawful by the High Court just last month.

The last industrial action was ruled unlawful due to the fact that people who had already taken voluntary redundancies from British Airways still voted in the ballot. This means that people that no longer worked for British Airways were voting towards the strike. Thus, the union has updated its membership database in a bid to avoid another repeat error like the one that happened last month.

A spokesperson for British Airways said that Unite’s general secretaries, Tony Woodly and Derek Simpson, have said that they would like to approach these talks in a constructive spirit, and they are seeking a settlement. However, it would appear that Unite is still preparing itself for the chance of an agreement not being reached.