British Airways is to take legal action in a bid to prevent a wave of strikes by its cabin crew, it was announced last night.
The airline will seek an injunction in the High Court on Monday, just 24 hours before the first of four five-day walkouts is due to be held.
The move came just hours after the conciliation service Acas said it had asked BA and the Unite union to attend peace talks to try to break the deadlocked row over jobs, pay and staffing levels.
BA said in a statement: "The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 requires unions to send everyone eligible to vote details of the exact breakdown of the ballot result.
"This point of law was clarified in April following Network Rail's successful application for an injunction to stop a strike by the RMT.
"We do not believe Unite properly complied with this requirement. We wrote to the general secretaries of the union yesterday asking them to explain to us how they discharged this obligation and, based on Unite's replies, we believe that they failed to comply with the legal requirement.
"On this basis we have applied to the High Court for an injunction to stop the 20 days of strikes planned from Tuesday.
"We make no apology for looking at every option possible to protect our customers and our company from this completely unjustified strike and the union's cynical attempts to destroy our airline."
BA said that until the court has heard the case, and with just days to go before the strikes are due to begin, it was "critical" that it continued with its contingency plans to deal with strikes.
The airline urged its staff to volunteer to work during the strikes, which are set to disrupt flights for over 20 days.
Members of Unite are due to walk out from May 18-22 inclusive, then from May 24-28, May 30-June 3 and June 5-9, the last strike ending just days before the start of the soccer World Cup in South Africa.
A Unite spokesman said "We will be vigorously defending our ballot and members against this move by BA. We have already responded to the company, and notified them that we have fully complied with the law. The only way to settle this long-running dispute is through negotiation. A solution is not to be found in the courtroom."
BA yesterday announced that it planned to run more than 60 per cent of long-haul flights and over half of short-haul flights from Heathrow during the first strikes next week.
The two sides have been in dispute for over a year over cost-cutting plans, including staff reductions on flights.
BA previously took legal action to prevent a threatened 12-day walkout over Christmas, but Unite subsequently held seven days of action in March.
Unite recently held an online ballot of its members which resulted in rejection of an offer by BA aimed at resolving the dispute.
Unite recommended rejection of the offer because BA has not fully restored travel concessions taken away from those who went on strike in March, and because dozens of staff have been suspended.
BA's reference to the RMT case follows a successful legal challenge by Network Rail to the rail union which halted a planned strike by maintenance and signal workers after Easter.
NR successfully argued that the union had balloted staff in signal boxes which had closed, and had not balloted other workers who were eligible to vote.