British Airways vs. BASSA (Airline Staff Only)

[bacabincrew]

earleyboy

We offered £50m pounds of savings - they still said no

[bacabincrew]

BASSA and UNITE will and are losing this battle and rightly so, someone else has posted on here , wrong time, wrong fight. Enjoy the dole queue when you are on it, it's not pleasent I've been there, it ain't pleasant as some will find.

Why will I be on the dole?

[earleyboy]

The ramp has had 37 Million K reduction. 2000 staff, you've 12000 ....... go figure !!

ps. and on target to reduce it, you ***** have just blown our savings and hard work, sacrifices out the window...thanks !! THAT'S why you have no support on the ramp. If you doubt this PM me and I will escort you into a ramp rest room of your choice where you can take a Q and A session. You will get out alive, I guarantee it. You may be a tab vocally abused, but no less the WW has had to suffer in the press of late !!

Look forward to hearing from you. Uni1 has suddenly gone quite and under the radar when challanged for real facts.

[bacabincrew]

earleyboy

The ramp has had 37 Million reduction. 2000 staff you've 12000 ....... go figure !!

My brother works on the ramp mate and I know exactly how you lot took the p*ss for years so don't start me on that one. Just because you don't get your traps any more - you lot bled BA dry for years - I know mate because I was told first hand - used to come in on overtime, 2 hours work and go home. No swiping in those days was it?

Don't come to me with your holier than though attitude because I know for a fact exactly what you boys used to get up too.

[rai]

bacabincrew wrote:

Im not arsed about benchmarking - the fact that other operators can pay peanuts is irrelevant. I have a contract and payscales - why should I be arsed what Virgin pay?

Errr... with all due respect, i think thats exactly the reason why you guys are in this horrible situation at the moment. Market forces have led to a situation whereby the benchmark of your pay and cost base with other carriers has become relevant and hence the company is taking the steps that it is now and it cannot afford to back down.

If you had perhaps been 'arsed' about benchmarking in the past (like other workgroups, companies and industries), and taken action to mitigate its effects, you might not be in a situation whereby you feel so victimised and rightly scared as to how much your T&C's are about to change.

As a lowly 2-striper and fellow colleague i dont say this with any glee or satisfaction. I truly feel sorry for you all, cos Unite are screwing you over and its not a nice thing to watch. I honestly wish you the best and i hope you (and the rest of us) come out of this with some sort of job worth having.

[MrMe]

As it stands there is no proposal for a pay cut for CC anyway is there?

[Litebulbs]

BA.Husband/Cabincrew

Keep posting, but keep thinking. You will be drawn into many arguments and anyone can throw mud at you. Some will be moderated some not. Keep within the rules or say the same thing from a different angle and definitely don't rise to it. Many will respect your opinion, even if they don't agree.

[bacabincrew]

As it stands there is no proposal for a pay cut for CC anyway is there?

No - not sure what the point is?

[Litebulbs]

Rai,

An ex poster, Barbiesboyfriend, works for a subsidiary of BA and was on £20K as an FO. There is a lot of fat in all departments.

[ottergirl]

Joined Tiramisu for morning coffee! I walked around CRC and counted how many crew had phones on lanyards, at 10am there were 26 in the TV room, 6 in the coffee bar and 15 wandering around that I saw; by 11am there were a couple of dozen more chatting to BF. Over 50 crew on standby and only about half a dozen used in total. There were probably 30+ pilots hanging around as well. The YYZ was checking in and went with a full crew. Nowhere near a normal day but certainly one could not say that CRC was empty. The Ops team did say that it was busier than the preceeding days though.

Chatted to some of the volunteers in dayglo vests; some nice chaps from engineering who were manning the buses were big enough to deter anyone from harrassment!

[earleyboy]

Used to is correct !!

[MrMe]

No - not sure what the point is?

Point of the strike or my question?

If 'my question' I am suggesting pay is irrelevant to the debate.

If 'point of the strike', well, that is a general quandary.

[ottergirl]

One thing about this strike action and the loss of staff travel for the strikers. Who amongst us is going to feel comfortable going on holiday on Staff Travel tickets with a 747 crew who have all lost their staff travel? What will the atmosphere and service be like do you think?

I think ultimately, their loss is going to generate fallout for the whole of the BA workforce.

[OverFlare]

when you lot had a dispute, many Pilots would have gone on strike - what many of us Cabin Crew simply cannot comprehend is this - what is the difference?

I think this is a very reasonable question. I know there has been at least one answer so far but one other thing I would say is this: if the Open Skies issue were kicking off now, with BA in its current financial state, rather than 2 years ago when we were making record profits, then I don't believe pilots would have voted to strike. Indeed, at least one BALPA rep is on record as saying we wouldn't even have been asked the question.

Many Pilots and Volunteers joined 'Willie's Army' to help 'save the airline from going bust' - everyone can now see that there is no danger of that

It is true that the strike action is having relatively little financial impact on BA. But this is because of the strike breaking cabin crew and all the volunteers who are ensuring that as many flights get away as possible. Had BASSA been successful in grounding the airline we'd all be a lot closer to the dole queue. Equally IMHO if WW backed down and reinstated the original crew numbers I think it would only be a matter of time before BA went bust.

Your argument reminds me of BASSA's complaint that the crew changes could be reversed because BA made a profit last quarter, while forgetting the main reason BA made the profit was because of the reduced crew numbers!

[FlexSRS]

Originally Posted by earleyboy

The ramp has had 37 Million K reduction. 2000 staff, you've 12000 ....... go figure !!

Originally Posted by BACabincrew

My brother works on the ramp mate and I know exactly how you lot took the p*ss for years so don't start me on that one. Just because you don't get your traps any more - you lot bled BA dry for years - I know mate because I was told first hand - used to come in on overtime, 2 hours work and go home. No swiping in those days was it?

Don't come to me with your holier than though attitude because I know for a fact exactly what you boys used to get up too

So, your argument seems to be that it is ok for the guys on the ramp to have to take massive changes to their Ts&Cs because they were used to outdated ways of working and used to getting all kinds of extra payments for work that perhaps wasn't getting done.

Can you see where I am going with this...

Hmm, it wouldn't take a huge stretch of the imagination to come up with...

My mate works as cabin crew mate and I know exactly how you lot take the p*ss so don't start me on that one. Just because you get your 2 nights on a diversion, demand 18hrs rest if your a few mins over and position back the next day, massive payments when the bunks are a bit bright/dark/cold, ridiculous clear times based on paying money in to Compass centre, even though bar operators just run ahead and it only takes them 2mins, 1 down payments, diversion payments, B2B payments, Dranse days, no early starts after days off, no late finishes on the last days, only 2 sectors if you report early on EF etc - you lot bled BA dry for years - I know mate because I have seen it first hand - used to come in and do 1 out to VIE and position back the next day was it?

Don't come to me with your holier than though attitude because I know for a fact exactly what you cabin crew get up to

[FlexSRS]

One thing about this strike action and the loss of staff travel for the strikers. Who amongst us is going to feel comfortable going on holiday on Staff Travel tickets with a 747 crew who have all lost their staff travel? What will the atmosphere and service be like do you think?

Not being funny, but the service staff get when travelling can be anything from brilliant, to down right rude bordering on offensive. I've witnessed the full spectrum.

I wouldn't think twice about using my staff travel even if all 13/14 crew on the plane had lost theirs. The main thing is getting a comfy seat, some quiet, some leg room and a few movies to watch. I couldn't really care less if the crew were all off hand. If I thought they were going to start spitting (or worse) in the food, I'd just grab something from Pret before I left, or use the Club Kitchen.

Trust me, it isn't going to bother people. Sorry.

[OverFlare]

The question of whether someone is on strike or not is completely different from the question of whether someone is sick or well. You can be on strike and sick or on strike and well. In other words, whether you are sick or well is not relevant to the question of whether you are on strike. I understand therefore that BA is legally entitled to assume that anyone who doesn't show up for work is on strike, since whether one is sick or well is not relevant.

I'm not saying BA won't make retrospective exceptions for people with a doctors note. But I think this might only be relevant if your period of sickness started before the strike days. I'm fairly sure if you called in sick - say - on Sunday for the first time, then it will be reasonable to assume that you are on strike.

In any case, if you're really not on strike I'm sure you can get into work and it will then be obvious you are unfit to fly. If you really are too ill to drag yourself into work then I guess you'd be in hospital anyway - in which case I'm guessing BA will let you off!

[M.Mouse]

You tried to stop something that you felt would undermine your role, career, pay, terms and conditions. We are doing the exactly the same yet being totally castigated for it - plus we see Pilots simply revelling in the fact that they are accelerating our demise.

bacabincrew, you seem to deliberately miss the point. The world has changed, all departments in BA have agreed BA needs savings, your union would not agree to changes which in the overall scheme of things were pretty indefensible (e.g. disruption agreement). After allowing some months to pass after the June deadline BA imposed some of the changes needed because your union just refused to negotiate sensibly seeing the whole thing as a conspiracy to attack your Ts & Cs and refusing to look at the Price Waterhouse Coopers confidential analysis of BA's finacial position. Your union has lost two court battles. What you will have to settle for in the end (assuming WW doesn't sack all the strikers after 12 weeks) will be far worse than the relatively painless changes on offer last June. The majority of the public appear to be against you. The majority of BA employees seem to be against you.

Not one striking CC member has appeared here with a cogent summation of what the strike is about and what would bring it to an end from the CC perspective.

I have been in regular contact with a Purser friend of mine who is almost sick with worry. I have closely followed the whole saga from the beginning of last year I have been convinced that Unite/BASSA have been on a political and personal crusade against WW and what he is trying to achieve for BA. I also am convinced he is going to win and be seen to win and that your union will be a spent force for the foreseeable future. I have urged my Purser friend to back the winning side and avoid the personal cost of entering an unwinnable fight.

I am certainly not revelling in the fact that many good people are being totally screwed by those with their own agendas running Unite/BASSA .

And do you really believe the moderators of PPRUNE are deliberately censoring pro-strike contributors? If they are it is not for what they are saying but the manner in which they are saying it or the fact they are not BA employees. The moderation of this thread has been exemplary.

[ottergirl]

Trust me, it isn't going to bother people. Sorry.

Well I think it will bother the Cabin Crew who have come to work but equally will be quite happy to hear if its only me. Lets see if they have a view.

[FlexSRS]

Well I think it will bother the Cabin Crew who have come to work but equally will be quite happy to hear if its only me. Lets see if they have a view.

Looking at the numbers of crew reporting to work, I think the strikers are going to be in a minority (EF reporting in the high 70s%).

Even so, for CC worried, there are plenty of reasons why they would still have their staff travel, annual leave, 33/50% days, off sick, jobshare, bid for weekends off, etc etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if BA changed the details on the PIL.

Crew who decide to work have nothing to be ashamed of, and any working crew member that decided to try and be offensive to a cc on staff travel would find themselves on the fast track to a disciplinary, I'm fairly certain of that. I think IFCE management have 'grown a pair' during all this!