I am a pilot within BA.
1) I have only been sick once since the new EG300 came into effect, and therefore have not triggered any of the stages.
2) Redfred is incorrect about being able to be sick as many days as you like, but only a certan number of occassions per year. There is also a limit for flying crew of 10 days per year. (This includes the day you called up sick, even if it was a day off. So people have taken to giving no notice, and calling on the day of report. Not a good thing for crewing purposes, but this is what the rules make us do.)
3) If I had been given the option, I would not have signed up to this new sickness management proceedure without certain changes. These would take into account that we cannot report with a common cold etc, but would not simply exclude you as often as you like if you have a cold. ie. I would give us an allowance of say 15 days or 20 days (or whatever is deemed acceptable). To give us the same allowance as anyone else is just stupid. Spending as much time in the environment that we do, at times when our body clock would prefer us to be in bed, weakens your immune system and you get ill more regularly - FACT.
4) At the end of the day, the CAA issued me a licence which requires a valid class 1 medical for it to be valid. I have had my medical revoked due to concussion. If I called the CAA each time I had a cold, they would temporarily revoke my medical too, but they would get pretty annoyed with me for wasting my time. This is why they give me the authority to do my own revoking for things such as colds. It is the LAW that I do so. BA should not be able to force me to break the law?
5) The question worrying me is, could BA sack me for going sick too often if I was genuinely sick on each occassion. Unfortunately, I think the answer with this new policy is YES. They could say an individual is sick more often than all other pilots and therefore are not well suited to the job. They could even argue that it is their duty of care to stop making you ill all of the time by employing you to fly.
6) Pilots have been told that if a BALPA member ends up at the final stage of this procedure, a strike Ballot will be issued. If you are not going to accept the WHOLE of the proccess as it is, why sign up to it BALPA?
7) I personally think BASSA are correct to stand their ground. However, I do not think cabin crew should be given carte blanche to go sick whenever they like. There should still be a limit on how many days sick, flying staff can take before triggering various stages, but this limit should be higher than general staff, to reflect that colds, headaches etc prevent us from doing our jobs.
8) For those arguing about whether a cold is an issue for flying staff or not - ask yourselves this: Would I like to be on an aircraft suffering a rapid decompression, where the crew mamber nearest me has a cold. Their ear drums have burst so they are so worried about the pain that they have not managed to get their oxygen on before passing out. You too have been in a bit of a panic, and did not get your oxygen on in time. Perhaps you were waiting by the toilet and there were no spare masks for you to get to in the few seconds of useful consciousness that you would have. Who is going to put your mask on for you now?
Similarly, the flight crew are currently trying to get the aircraft down to a safe altitude, but they cannot hear each other or the radio, because their eardrums have burst. And the pain is taking away much of their capacity. Perhaps they will set an altitude that is too low, and fly me into a mountain? Or any other number of things because they are not fit to fly, but have come to work because BA have applied so much pressure. Yes they were breaking the law when they pitched up for work, pressure or no pressure, but that is not going to help me when I am dead. Or perhaps they were not breaking in the law, but simply did not have the symptoms before the flight, from the cold they had picked up on a nightstop with one of the crew who came to work with a cold...
Finally - it is not true that BALPA are desperate to do a u-turn on this sickness procedure.
It IS true that they are constantly trying to adjust it. But they understand the need for the policy within the company and that is why they signed up to it.
Signing up to the deal had nothing to do with payrises or bonuses or anything. In fact i believe BALPA had already signed us up to EG300 before we were balloted on the pay deal.
I don\'t think we were actually asked for our opinion on EG300. As far as I aware, BALPA just signed it. Cheers?
The company are saving a lot of money with this new procedure every year. I think you MIGHT find that striking WILL be required to prevent the policy being forced upon you, if BA choose to go along this line. Remember, BA will be thinking of the money they are saving elsewhere in the company, and it is money that is saved every year, so it just depends how far into the future they are prepared to look (how many years of savings), before deciding it is cheaper to give in.