Some incredible dissection of numbers and figures guys!
My Doris is a LH purser at LHR and I really wish she could keep earning c£30k a year before she can tell them to stick it. The sad fact is that nowhere else in the industry do CC enjoy either the terms, conditions and salaries that you currently enjoy. I know you have fought long and hard for them but the fact is they are way way above the industry standard and norm. Thats the hard to digest truth.
Vote to strike over this and you are putting a noose around your own neck if not the companies future...its hard to take but more than likely a fair assessment.
Good luck!
Have I missed something? Has every department finalised a deal?
KUMOOZ, You appear to be in a position to lose Doris's money, or at least your willingness to surrender the money makes it appear so. I am not unfortunately. The problem is BA are supplying the noose.
The idea that the increases in costs to be saved from the IFCE budget are due to delays in reaching an agreement doesn't quite add up.
2 months ago the original ask was to save £82m from IFCE budget (£568m) which was about 14%
At the same point Flight Ops had a target of saving £13m from their budget (£445) which was 2.9%
Both those targets have been increased. Now Flight Ops is to cut £38.5m which is 8.6% and IFCE £210m which is 37%.
There seems to have been a similar rate of increase applied to the 2 departments.
I am actually a little relieved by this...not because of some inapproriate and foolish notion about fairness....but because I was concerned that the whole intention of the LT was to force us to fail. After all, every time BASSA reached their asking figure, they increased it. Seemed strange, but perhaps that is the way business is done.
As for the accusation that our negotiaition has failed because of inadequate effort or unethical bias in the part of the BASSA reps...I disagree. The simple fact that they had to negotiate a cut 4 times the size of the BALPA negotiations is sufficient explanation for me. The larger the cut, the more difficult the task.
Anyway, now I have read the threads on this topic (took a while, but luckily I almost never go to work - I'm BA cc and we sit around wondering what luxury to buy with our inflated wages that might fill some of our excessive time off). I feel I have a much better understanding of the whole situation. As the FO said to me, the other week...I'm sick of being such a terrible burden to WW and I'm going to send him an immediate apology!
I shall now do likewise. Thank you for putting me right.
What evidence do you have that Walsh has scared away business? I could equally argue that he has bought us customers- customers who would hate to see BA fail, who may not have booked with us if it wasn't for him explaining how close we are to the brink. I have seen no evidence of any adverse effect from the publicity we've had recently. But I do know talks breaking down with Unions, and irresponsible unions beating their chests will scare passengers away very quickly. As of course will a ballot for IA.
The above comment sums up just how out of touch many are who use this forum. I find it quite incredible that some are burying their heads in the sand, blame CC, blame Unions, blame everybody else, from their smug position of having their "savings to the company" sorted.
If any of you on hear think that the customers are not ALREADY moving then I suggest you stretch your legs a bit more and ask for yourself.
CFC, quantify it then. And I don't mean a pathetic anecdotal story of what a passenger has said to you, which seems to be about as scientific as some of our cabin crew can get. Let me guess, you spoke to a "load of customers in Club" or something? Grow up.
BA have hourly, daily and weekly statistics on passenger booking trends. Now you tell me how you know more about booking trends than that? Passengers are undoubtedly leaving BA, but they're leaving every other airline too. That's the whole point, people aren't flying as much anymore. Especially premium passengers, which affects you directly, because according to your beloved Union you're all "Premium crew". Can you please tell me what the actual premium loads have been doing in the last 6 months? You must have the double digit percentages to hand, I do? Can you tell me how yield on those loads has plummeted, because again I can? Can you for one minute remove yourself from the BASSA bubble and step into the real world, where honest hardworking people are losing their jobs?
In the next few weeks we'll see whether the smug ones were right or not. Or whether the dinosaurs from BASSA have read this situation better than all the accountants, managers, economists, investors, financiers...
As for the accusation that our negotiaition has failed because of inadequate effort or unethical bias in the part of the BASSA reps...I disagree. The simple fact that they had to negotiate a cut 4 times the size of the BALPA negotiations is sufficient explanation for me. The larger the cut, the more difficult the task.
You believe your sufficient explanation, in a few months time, looking back, you may come to a different opinion.
My only advice would be to not rely solely on BASSA for your view of the world!
Well you boys and girls get no sympathy from me! Most of you live in complete fantasy and are going to hit the ground hard. Face it BA is a dinosaur in the modern airline industry and simply cannot compete with the likes of Easyjet and ryanair who where saving cash left right and centre long before the recession even started. Simple fact is you bend or the company will brake.
2 months ago the original ask was to save £82m from IFCE budget (£568m) which was about 14%
At the same point Flight Ops had a target of saving £13m from their budget (£445) which was 2.9%
Both those targets have been increased. Now Flight Ops is to cut £38.5m which is 8.6% and IFCE £210m which is 37%.
There seems to have been a similar rate of increase applied to the 2 departments.
Wrong Reargunner.
The original saving for Flt Ops was to keep costs level for two years. Each year's increase in costs if everything remained the same, would have been £13m. That's how the cuts were described initially.
However if you take 2 years cuts, the first being £13m, the second being £26m and add them up, you get £39m!!! That's the figure now used to demonstrate our savings.
Our savings target has never changed, we negotiated carefully calculated cuts that minimised their effects on pilots whilst achieving the required cost reductions.
So now you can go back to being less 'relieved' again.
There's an awful lot of number crunching going on!
I don't feel BA have moved the goalposts at all. We have always known that huge savings were required - the Union have been in denial and refused to save anything like the figures required. BASSA, in an attempt to show a degree of logic, are now pumping out figures left, right and centre with no substantian or evidence. Their proposal alleges to save £173 million. Evidence? Verified by who? Worked out by who - a couple of CSD BASSA reps who are probably on BOAC contracts and haven't stepped foot in the real world since 1960?
And now the figures of 37%. What does that figure mean? Where is the evidence of it? How was it arrived at? Please - enlighten me.
CC are pumping out these figures now on other forums in an attempt to show "how hard done by we are"This is turning into a farce.
In the meantime, the clock is ticking, nothing is being achieved, and we may very soon have imposition. Glamgirl - I'll be right there with you crossing that picket line - if we ever get the chance to get that far.
"BA is now in dispute with UNITE - not just Bassa, which is affiliated to UNITE.
UNITE represent nearly 30,000 BA workers, not just crew. They are regularly meeting together, something that has never happened before.
WW is definitely in for a rough ride - roll on the ballot papers!"
Just be careful there, if crew vote to strike over crew issues, the law would not support all BA UNITE members going in strike for support. To strike it has to be for legitimate reasons that concern your own job, not other people's.
Are you certain that BA's dispute with Unite is not related to another employee group that has also been negotiating for months, and has yet to reach agreement...?
Still, just by virtue of being in the same union, does not permit joint strike action of both employee groups, operating on different contracts, agreements and in different locations.
Yes CFC we can all pick and choose an article from a paper supporting whatever we want to believe. After all, we all earn £29000 don't we??
The fact is we are achieving nothing by all of this. I personally want to do my bit to get the company back on it's feet. I will work harder. If it has to be me and one other crew member on a flight, then I'll do it (just rhetoric Willie), I'll have less time off downroute, and I will be more productive. And I will do it with a smile on my face, looking after the customers that I love helping every day and providing a PREMIUM service that I have been trained to do.
We are in the midst of a recession and our company is asking us to work a bit harder and retain the same levels of pay. I bet Woolworths, Barrat shoes, Lehman staff etc would think we are lucky! In fact, I bet there isn't anyone outside of BA that doesn't think that's a reasonable proposition.
Staggering, truly and completely staggering. As a long faithful passenger of BA, with a keen interest in aviation, and speaking as someone who has been caught in the various 'summers of discontent' I can only laugh at the comments of those who are apparently willing to go to war with the company. BASSA was broken during the last dispute, it can never recover. There is no possibility that BA cabin crew will blindly follow the leadership of a union that can deliver nothing. BA cabin crew are by and large intelligent and aware of the global picture - They meet and talk to people who are affected by the recession every single day, and I have every trust they will work out what to do with a ballot paper. The game is over, accept it or not, it doesn't matter - The world has moved on. There is no fight, because there is no army.
This is turning into a farce.
lucky! In fact, I bet there isn't anyone outside of BA that doesn't think that's a reasonable proposition.
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