Union ballots Virgin pilots on strike action

A PAY dispute between between airline Virgin Atlantic and its pilots has led to union Balpa balloting its members over potential strike action.

Balpa said that it had been unable to agree a deal with the company despite the involvement of government mediation service ACAS and it so it is now balloting Virgin pilots over the prospect of strike action.

Virgin flies three routes from Manchester airport, including a new twice-weekly Manchester-Las Vegas service which was only launched last month.

Balpa said that more than 85% of Virgin ATlantic’s 750 pilots were members of its organisation.

“Pilots in Virgin have not had a pay increase since 2008,” said the union’s general secretary Jim McAuslan. “During the tough years, pilots have made sacrifices to help the business on the basis that fair pay would return. But that hasn’t proved to be the case.”

The company is offering a 4% increase in salaries this year, with a further 3% in 2012 and 2013. Balpa said this year’s increase did not take into account the fact that salaries had been frozen since 2008, and that future rises were below inflation.

“Pilots would, if they accepted these increases, be in effect voting themselves years of wage cuts.

“We do not want a dispute but to date there has been no meaningful movement by the company and even the involvement of ACAS has not broken the logjam.

Virgin Atlantic said that it had made a “fair, affordable and sustainable offer that is in line with the rest of the industry”.

It added that it countinued to be open to dialogue and that its flight schedule was continuing to operate as normal.

The ballot will be posted on May 24 and the results are expected four weeks later.