British Airways won a High Court injunction last night to stop a strike by 12,000 cabin crew just six hours before they were due to walk out.
British Airways, which stood to lose £140 million from the strike, said that it was delighted by the ruling but acknowledged that passengers whose flights have already been cancelled this week would be unable to fly as originally planned.
The union was considering going to the Court of Appeal today to get the ban overturned. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “This is a desperately worrying judgment. This and other recent decisions begin to make it look as if there is no effective right to strike in today’s Britain.”
The latest move in the legal battle – the second won by BA against Unite – came as the airline persuaded Mr Justice McCombe in the High Court that Unite had not ”properly complied” with a legal requirement to ”send everyone eligible to vote details of the exact breakdown of the ballot result”.
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