High Court blocks BAE legal action over strikes

Members of the Unite union at the Warton and Samlesbury plants had voted to strike after rejecting a 3.6% pay offer

BAE Systems has lost a High Court bid to block staff from taking strike action at two of its sites in Lancashire.

Members of the Unite union at the Warton and Samlesbury plants had voted to strike after rejecting a 3.6% pay offer.

About 400 members from four sections of the company, including manufacturing and quality control, walked out in a row over pay on Wednesday, with the strike due to last until 25 November, the union said.

BAE, who said it believed it had "good grounds for the legal challenge and will consider the courts judgment", had applied for an injunction preventing strike action from going ahead, which Judge Michael Soole refused to grant.

The judge said he would give his reasons at a later date.

BAE added: "We respect the right of employees to engage in industrial action and remain committed to a partnership approach with all our Trade Union groups."

Bruce Carr KC, for BAE, said in written submissions for the hearing on Tuesday that Unite had given notice to ballot on 24 September after rejecting the 2025 pay offer.

He said that following this, union representatives told members not to train managers in aircraft testing and that this amounted to a call to industrial action, therefore invalidating the lawfulness of the upcoming strike.

But Oliver Segal KC, for Unite, said BAE was "ludicrously interpreting" emails between union representatives discussing the training as instructions for union members not to comply.

'Wasting money'

After the ruling earlier, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "This unsuccessful attempt by BAE to prevent a lawful strike will have severely damaged the goodwill it has with its workforce.

"It now needs to come back to the negotiating table with an acceptable offer for striking workers in its Air division, rather than wasting money on pointless legal threats.

"Otherwise, our members will be taking strike action throughout November in their fight for fair pay."

Mr Carr said that BAE was considering an appeal.