I recently took CX to a U.K tribunal with several complaints. One was breach of contract. My holiday entitlement was contractually 22 days in the first year of employment rising to 25 on a one extra day per year basis. Also I had a public holiday entitlement of 8 days.
CX worked out my holiday entitlement by adding the 8 public holidays to the leave making 30 days, then pro ratering down as I worked 12 hour shifts - this meant I was actually given a total of 20 days including public holidays.
In court CX tried to argue that this was industry practise, but had no proof of this. To the contrary I had proof that it was not industry practise so the tribunal upheld this complaint saying that I was entitled to my contractual holiday of 30 days and not the 20 CX had given me.
Now the disturbing part - CX knew they were wrong as it had been proven in court. Rather than accept this and pay others who had also been given reduced holiday allowances the cash equivalent (in many cases into the tens of thousands of pounds) they swiftly issued a new contract (within days of the court case) in an attempt to get the people whom had lost out to sign away their contractual right to the higher holiday allowance. When questioned by current staff the copanys representatives denied the new hastily issued contract altered the terms and conditions, merely stating things had been clarified. They of course knew that this was not true.
It is my opinion that CX will only ever give anything up to staff when told to by a court. Unless a judgement is specificaly applied to all staff the individuals who hope to benefit would have to take the matter up themselves.
Cabin crew I fear will have a long wait for CX to give them the money they owe them. After all it is better financially for CX to sit back and do nothing as they know the vast majority will not persue legal action.
However it has been very satisfying to know that CXs dreadfull behaviour towards their U.K based staff has resulted in huge staff turnover and the difficulty the company is now experiencing in recruiting the staff they need.
What goes around comes around as the saying goes.
AND YES, THEY CAN BE BEATEN.