Please join us for on online session of the HBS Research Seminar Series on Wednesday 23 November at 13:00-14:00 with:
Dr Ed Blissett, who will present his paper “The two hundred-million-pound strike: The 2003 British Airways walkout”
Abstract: This paper provides answers to the research questions I originally outlined in my 2019 BUIRA conference paper on the 2003 British Airways Customer Service Agents (CSAs) unofficial strike. To do so it draws upon my book (Blissett, 2021) to briefly summarise the lead up to the dispute, the dispute itself, and its eventual resolution. The paper then answers the 3 key research questions: (1) Why did the BA Customer Service Agents (CSAs) become so incensed at an imposed change to their terms and conditions of employment that they took, unlawful, unofficial strike action?; (2) Why did BA’s management impose such a controversial change to working practices on the company’s busiest weekend of the year? (A decision which, eventually, cost the company over £200,000,000, tarnished its reputation, and saw numerous senior managers lose their jobs.); and (3) How and why did the CSAs trade unions (the GMB Union, the Transport and General Workers Union and Amicus) react in such different ways to the unofficial strike, and then behave so differently in the subsequent negotiations?
You will find the link to join the meeting below.
Microsoft Teams meeting
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Meeting ID: 332 070 998 07
Passcode: gXZ9rx
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More information about the current programme of the HBS Research Seminar Series can be found here.