Dear All
Apologies for my absence. It's that darned job getting in the way again. I was going to say "getting in the way of pleasure", but that might be a little rash.
Many points have been answered by other contributers so I won't go over them again. To clear up some posts:
19 months off
There is no mystery or conspiracy here. Pregancies are generally declared when confirmed around 3 months. That gives 6 months grounded. 6 weeks (only) paid maternity leave plus a further 26 weeks' OML gives another 6 months. Under new legislation, mothers are now entitled to a further 26 weeks unpaid Additional Maternity Leave. That gives 18 months. Add on 4 week's worth of accrued leave and you have your 19 months, much of which is unpaid and in the vast majority of cases, all of what is paid is at a monthly rate of less than would be earned if flying.
Training Costs
From my recollection, cadets pay back 50% of their training costs over the first 5 years (pro-rated if PT) in the company. In addition, their salaries are on a sliding scale percentage of a DEP salary for the first 5 years, only catching up at pp6. Whilst is was a good deal, it certainly is not having everything handed to you on a plate as some have suggested. That accusation could better be aimed at my generation who had everything sponsored by BA. We were incredibly lucky.
Bad things happened to others, therefore why should JS be different?"
I think the substantive point of that post has been answered. However, I raise it because many posts I have read here and elsewhere revolve around the line of "I / my wife / my mother did it so why shouldn't she?" It's an interesting point. Do two wrongs make a right? Did the mothers of the suffragettes tell them that they shouldn't protest because
they never had the vote? In the UK today we are working more hours than ever before, and females are achieving positions in business which were unthinkable 20 years ago. Our society is changing rapidly and, I think, is still trying to come to terms with itself over the concepts of working and parenthood. The pendulum hasn't finished swinging by any means.
Surely the only way to progress is to explore ways in which the maximum amount of flexibility is available to the maximum number of people. This is why this case is so important: it is not just about sexual discrimination. It is about opening up the possibilities for flexible working to all pilots, be they male or female, junior or senior. This is BALPA's aim. Does anyone think we should not be striving for this?
JS could go LH at 50%
Theoretically yes, but don't forget that BA can do what they like with a pilot in the first 5 years of their employment. In reality, most FOs have to see out those 5 years before they are allowed to move on. I fly with enough of them desperate to go on to the shiny LH beasts...
JS not returning and claiming constructive dismissal
Those are hypothetical questions, I'm afraid, and ones I am certainly not qualified to answer.
The cadet pilot quality argument
For information, the BA cadet scheme started in December 1987, so thinking it through nearly two thirds of the current pilot strength came through the cadet scheme. Indeed, a very high number of the trainers on the Airbus are ex-cadets. It is the best standard and consistancy of training I have ever found on any BA fleet I been part of. I don't think the argument as to the quality or not of the cadets really adds to this debate. Jessica reached - and continues to reach - the required high standard to operate a BA jet. I refer you to the opinions expressed a couple of pages ago concerning the opinions on the fleet as to her competence.
800 hours only on overtime
This is not true. We have pilots on planned rosters alone currently achieving over 800 annual hours on the Airbus.
"No budget for 50% PTW isn't discriminatory"
The answer to this one is in what the tribunal calls the PCP, or Policy, Criterion or Policy. It notes that once you move from 75% to 50% contracts, the number of them is going to be proportionally more female than male. This means that any PCP you apply to 50% contracts (in this case, not giving any) has a disproportionate, and therefore discriminatory, effect on females. Hope that makes sense.
There has been some comment that BALPA is supporting her just because she is female. This is not true. A member brought a case to us requesting support and the case fulfilled all the internal criteria necessary for us to support it. Therefore we did. If a case is brought by male which also fulfills the criteria, we will support that as well. Indeed, the last time BALPA took BA to an ET it was over unfair dismissal of a male.
I would finally like to ask again a question I asked some pages ago which never received a reply: would an employer, holding an application from a female pilot in one hand and a newspaper detailing the
JS case in the other, be more or less likely now to throw that application in the bin, knowing that the subject is red hot and we are all looking at it very closely indeed? Female cadets will continue to come out of the training schools. If their male colleagues all found jobs and they didn't, then there is something clear and measurable going on. I sincerely hope that situation does not happen, but we will support any female who thought - and could provide reasonable evidence - that they were being discriminated against. As, indeed, we would support a male who found themselves in the mirror situation.
Best wishes
Dave