BALPA and SEPLA Partnership and Fatigue
How are BALPA and SEPLA going to be dealing with the outsourcing of work as management looks to reduce costs and fatten their bonuses? This is a necessary partnership for them. Any thoughts ?
It will be necessary such partnerships to fight against the upcoming changes on duty time and rest at the European level. Any rumours of action against the proposed changes increasing the flight duty period and reducing rest at the European level ?
BRITISH AND SPANISH PILOT UNIONS IN PARTNERSHIP TALKS
"Talks at strengthening the links between associations of airline pilots have been held in London.
The top level talks between BALPA (the British Airline Pilots' Association, representing more than 9.000 airline pilots in 25 airlines) and the national pilots' association in Spain, SEPLA (the Sindicato Espanol de Pilotos de Lineas Aereas, representing over 5.000 pilots in 27 airlines) started in Madrid in September against a background of growing trans-national operations and a changing regulatory framework in the industry.
Talks between the pilots in BA and Iberia have already been taking place and protocols agreed as to how they will deal with the expansion of the new merged airline. And pilots in easyJet already have a European agreement.
But the SEPLA/BALPA partnership talks are looking at how the respective national associations can work together.
BALPA Chairman Captain Mark Searle said 'The two unions believe that whilst there is free movement of capital, employment laws are in the main domestically constrained, leading to airlines playing employees off against each other. We will do all we can to prevent this.'
SEPLA President Captain Javier Martinez de Velasco said 'By working together in partnership we can more effectively deal with regulation which is increasingly being decided at European level.'
Both SEPLA and BALPA recognise that national pilot associations dotted across Europe may not be the best way of protecting and promoting the profession's interests or of safeguarding the travelling public.
Under the umbrella of the European Cockpit Association (ECA) cross border discussions already take place between pilot associations leading to collective influence at the EU and in the European Parliament. SEPLA and BALPA have recommitted to full participation in ECA.
But this week's talks identified that whilst airlines have been developing through cross-border mergers the way pilots organise themselves remains nationally based and slow to respond to the changing nature of aviation.
The talks have identified a range of activity where an early start can be made at developing a new model. These include developing common policies on issues such as the increasing threat of fatigue amongst pilots, shared research facilities, reciprocal legal support, an initiative to benchmark salaries across both country's carriers, aligning our training courses for representatives, synergies to reduce costs, looking at how we can harness increased buying power with suppliers to make members' subscriptions go further and partnering on some of SEPLA's international charity work.
SEPLA and BALPA are also gearing up to challenge today's threats to the pilot profession such as the use of casual employment and the outsourcing of jobs to subsidiary companies with possible impacts on flight safety. This growing trend has symptoms of uncertainty of employment and taxation status and unpredictability of working pattern and location.
Under casual contracts pilots will not know where they will be working or in which country they will sleep from day to day and week by week. The associations are also concerned that young pilots are being exploited by not only having to find £80,000 to get his or her basic licence but then having to pay over £30,000 to an airline for the 'privilege' of co-piloting one of their aircraft.
Captain Javier Martinez de Velasco and Captain Mark Searle said 'We believe in solidarity between pilots and to preserve that core value in the new world requires us to rethink how we organise. We are each proud of our traditions and heritage, but we will not become prisoners to it. By working together we can achieve anything and make sure that every flight is a safe flight."
Lets see how effective this partnership shall become, I wonder..?
Last edited by Hannibalpower; 1st Apr 2011 at 09:23.