British Airways and replace them with agency staff; it is estimated that the strike cost British Airways £30 million and caused disruption to 100,000 passengers. In October 2006, BA became involved in a civil rights dispute when a Christian employee was forbidden to wear a necklace bearing the cross, a religious symbol. BA's practice of forbidding such symbols has been publicly questioned by British politicians such as the former Home Secretary John Reid and the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Relations have been turbulent between BA and Unite. In 2007, cabin crew threatened strike action over salary changes to be imposed by
John William Gordon (trade unionist) John William Gordon (trade unionist) John William Gordon (born 1879) was an Irish trade union official and political activist. Born in Dublin to a Catholic family, Gordon came to Britain to work on the Great Western Railway, and joined the National Union of Railwaymen. He became correspondence secretary of the union's Paddington No.1 branch in 1907, then branch secretary in 1912. He studied in the evenings at the Regent Street Polytechnic, then at the London School of Economics, and his skill with figures enabled him to work full-time for the union as its cashier, and he was later promoted to