Disgraceful day for democracy

Unelected High Court judge Mrs Justice Cox, who enjoys a publicly funded salary worth more than £170,000 a year, struck down the Unite union's democratic ballot of low-paid airline staff, ruling 10,000 votes for industrial action invalid.

Ms Cox declared the massive 92 per cent vote for action on an 80 per cent turnout void, after agreeing with BA's claim that the union had committed "serious irregularities" by balloting a handful of workers who had accepted voluntary redundancy.

Airline boss Willie Walsh, who rakes in £735,000 a year - compared to the average basic wage of his cabin crew who earn just £19,000 - had insisted on ripping up union agreements to impose staff cuts, but his workforce hit back and declared a 12-day strike to begin next Tuesday.

A Unite spokeswoman said that the judge's decision was "a disgraceful day for democracy" and pledged to run the strike vote again immediately after Christmas.

Unite's lawyer John Hendy QC countered BA's claim that the union had committed "wilful, disproportionate and clearly unlawful actions," emphasising that Unite had done "everything possible" to meet the anti-union laws' stringent demands for strike ballots.

He said that the union accepted redundant members had been included in the ballot, but emphasised that BA had not told the union any details and Unite did not know how many of those redundancies were its members.

But Mr Hendy pointed out that, while the union had sought a negotiated settlement to the dispute, BA's "intransigence had compelled union members to act.

"This was an overwhelming ballot result indicating a real depth of feeling among the cabin crew members of Unite," he stressed.

"Some 13,000-odd ballot papers were distributed and there were 10,286 valid votes - of which 9,514 voted Yes to industrial action and 772 voted No - that's an absolutely overwhelming mandate."

The court's decision came as airport porters at Gatwick prepared to walk out on strike today in protest against bosses' attempts to force them to acccept a pay freeze.

Despite raking in £88 million profits last year, Interserve executives decided to award shareholders a 17 per cent rise on their dividends instead of offering its 56 staff a fair pay rise, Unite organiser Ian McCulloch revealed.

"This company is jumping on the bandwagon of the recession to exploit its workers even further," he declared.