BRITISH Airways cabin crew will start voting today in a new strike ballot over their long-running dispute with the airline which threatens fresh industrial action in the run-up to Easter.

It will be the fourth ballot among BA cabin crew in the past two years in a bitter row which started over cost- cutting but now centres on travel concessions taken away from staff who took part in strike action last year, as well as disciplinary action taken against Unite members.

Cabin crew voted earlier this year to hold further strikes, but BA argued that the ballot was unlawful, leading the Electoral Reform Society to qualify its official report into the voting.

Unite claimed that “systemic anti-union activity” at the company was preventing headway in negotiations, saying that since 2010, 18 union members had been sacked and another 70 suspended, including a third of the local union leader- ship.

Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, said: “For the fourth time in two years we are forced to ballot for strike action at BA to defend our cabin crew members.

“This has never been about pay or about costs – indeed peace would cost BA not one penny. This is about our members’ determination to stop a bullying employer.

“BA may think that by harassing its workers it can crush them, but that is not how to secure enduring peace at the airline.”

McCluskey said BA needed to rethink its strategy, adding: “Talk to us now about peace because if you do not there will be unrest at this airline for a long time to come.”

A BA spokesman said: “Apart from a tiny minority of hardliners, every- one now wants this dispute to be over.”