British Airways cabin crew began a new strike on Monday after weekend talks to resolve the long-running dispute broke down in acrimony.

Here is a timeline of events in the battle between BA and the Unite union, which represents BA staff:

Oct. 5, 2009 – BA announces plan to cut 1,700 staff in Britain and implement a two-year freeze in basic pay for cabin crew.

Oct. 7 – Unite says BA must abandon plans to cut jobs and resume talks or face possible strike action by cabin crew in the run-up to Christmas.

Oct. 30 – Unite launches a legal challenge against BA’s plan to change working patterns for 14,000 cabin crew, which fails.

Dec. 14 – BA cabin crew call a 12-day strike planned over Christmas, hours after the airline revealed a 3.7 billion pound hole in its pension fund.

Dec. 15 – BA takes legal action to halt the 12-day strike by cabin crew and two days later wins a court ruling stopping the Christmas strike action.

Jan. 20, 2010 – Unite says it will re-ballot staff but BA cabin crew say they will not strike over the Easter holiday period because of the public backlash over the planned Christmas strike.

Jan. 25 – Unite opens a new strike ballot after two weeks of talks with BA fail to secure a deal.

Feb. 19 – Unite loses a High Court bid to overturn changes to cabin crews’ working arrangements.

Feb. 22 – More than 80 percent of the 9,000 BA cabin crew balloted by Unite back industrial action.

March 4 – BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh says 6,000 staff have volunteered to step in and keep the airline operating in the event of a strike.

March 12 – Unite says its members will strike for three days from March 20 and for four days from March 27, while BA remove a formal offer made to staff the day before and conditional on Unite not naming any strike dates.

March 15 – Prime Minister Gordon Brown says a strike by BA cabin crew is “unjustified and deplorable” and should be called off.

March 19 – Unite announces that talks with management have collapsed and the strike is to go ahead from midnight.

March 22 – BA says full year earnings expectations were unchanged as contingency plans for dealing with the three-day strike had been successful, limiting costs to 21 million pounds.

March 23 – BA says is open to holding further talks with the Unite union to avert a second wave of strikes. March 30 – Cabin crew end their second four-day strike at midnight.

April 7 – British Airways and union officials have resumed talks aimed at averting further strikes.

April 8 – BA and Spain’s Iberia sign an $8 billion merger to create the world’s third-largest airline.

May 7 – Cabin crew reject the airline’s latest offer in a ballot, Unite says.

May 10 – Unite announces a new wave of strikes. The first action will begin on May 18 and run until May 22. There will be further strikes on May 24-28, May 30-June 3 and June 5-9.

May 17 – BA wins an injunction against the strikes as the union failed to tell a small number of its 11,000 members there were 11 spoilt ballot papers in an overwhelming vote to authorise the strikes.

May 20 – Unite wins an appeal against the High Court ruling that had blocked a new wave of walkouts.

May 24 – BA cabin crew begin a fresh five-day strike after talks to try to resolve the dispute broke down in acrimony. Unite says further five-day stoppages will take place from May 30 and June 5, should there be no peace deal.

Source: business.maktoob.com