BA boi.....You are so right.
All this chit chat of 'Oh look what Willie did to the Aer Lingus crews!'. What bollocks. Aer Lingus and BA are as different as chalk and cheese.
For a start.....after Sept 11 Aer Lingus was widely tipped as being the next Sabena or Swissair and go 'belly up'. It was losing millions every day. The crews knew that if they didn't give into management demands there would be no job to come back to next week. Willie had it easy to reduce their salaries and benefits as that was better than no job at all!
Now look at the BA situation. Soon to announce profits of £565million and officially to become the 'Worlds Most Profitable Airline' . Does anyone really believe in light of these figures that Willie will have much joy in convincing BASSA that further cuts are absolutely necessary? I think not!
And with the AMICUS/TGWU merger soon Cabin Crew 89 (and their handful of members) will be no more within BA as it has already been acknowledged by Amicus, TGWU and BA that BASSA will be the sole official Cabin crew trade union.
As already mentioned our allowence system and union negotiated terms and conditions form part of the mainline contract of employment. For BA to try and change any of these without the crews OK will be in effect breaking our contracts....and the law.
Things probably will change a little in preparation for our move to Terminal 5, but only if it is with a bit of 'give and take'. Not only money but other things need to be looked at as well:
- Our rubbish (in comparison to other UK airlines) travel concessions
- A decent bidding system for longhaul crew.
- Look at mixed flying (for those who want to volunteer to do it).