I suspect that both Carnage and Harry are right in differing ways. BA will go on being an airline and won’t contract-out engineering or flight ops, (just look what happens when catering is out-sourced, and not a core function). But BA will eradicate most of the current terms and conditions of the pilots contract to the point where I predict that a lot of very experienced people will be looking for an early way out of BA.
This is, of course, a very desirable outcome for BA as these long-term employees have accrued annoying employment rights and expensive pension rights in our defined benefit (as opposed to contribution) final salary pension scheme.
WW’s shopping list from the pilots -
Take the following, with BA’s probable view or response added afterwards in quotes:
1) Bidline: a system where pilots have some input into the work allocation process
“No other UK airline has this – it is a cost. We must eliminate it.”
2) Heavy crew in longhaul:
“Where possible this will be eliminated as an unnecessary cost”
3) More than legal minimum rest down route:
““Where possible this will be eliminated as an unnecessary cost”
4) Bunk rest for longhaul crews:
“Few other UK airline have this – it is a cost. We must eliminate it.”
5) Flight crew achieving less than 900 hours per rolling year as per CPA 371 absolute limits
“Anything less is an inefficiency – we must attain a roster program that gets as close as possible to this figure for all flightcrew, long and shorthaul”
6) Crew food.
“Recent events have demonstrated we can manage on a much reduced level of provision for flightcrew – this must become the norm from now on”
7) Rights to “bid” for aircraft type.
“Few if any other UK airline allows this - it is a cost. We must eliminate it.”
8) Loss of license insurance.
“Fewer and fewer UK airlines provide this – why do we? Eliminate it”
9) A final salary-related pension scheme.
“Fewer and fewer UK airlines provide this – why do we? Eliminate it”
Now I realise the scheme will have to be funded to meet its current accrued obligations to date of closure for this to be legal, but watch first for a demand for increased contributions to maintain the same level of benefits first, then closure when funding allows.
10) One pay scale.
“Other airlines have a multitude of contracts, (see Ryanair), why are we so naïve as to provide one scale?”
Of course, we don’t now because new-starters in BA are on a D scale compared to the rest of us as they join on about the worst defined contribution scheme of any UK major carrier, making them about a third cheaper than the rest of us. Look what THAT tells you about where the final salary scheme is going!
11) A seniority list and bidding and command rights tied to this.
“This hands ludicrous levels of control over our employees to the Union and denies us the chance to contain dissent by selective promotion – it WILL be eliminated”
I could go on, but that’s a pretty good flavour of what’s going to be eliminated, but gradually so there is never quite enough unified dissent to provoke a strike.
There are, of course, very good reasons why these elements of the contract arose in the first place, but these will cut no ice with WW and his new team.
Remember this phrase– “One man’s contractual entitlement is another man’s Spanish Practise”
Now many will argue that BALPA will never allow this to happen.
Err, no, BALPA is powerless and BA knows it. In the near strike of ’96 when the Danair integration (itself a picture perfect piece of pure injustice) took place there was a ballot over the creation of a B scale at LGW. This was overwhelmingly in favour of strike action – but as the deadline loomed phones at BALPA HQ rang off the wall with people saying a ballot was one thing but actually striking another. BA meanwhile had threatened to use heavyweight lawyers to sue individual pilots for loss of revenue from services they would have operated but did not due to taking strike action. And BA would have used them.
Not only that but, it can be alleged, BALPA’s top membership of the Company Council is too easy to “nobble”. Look at the last Chairman of the BACC – he quit to take up a management role!
Current incumbents were probably told before the recent non-ballot-but-questionnaire about pensions for new starters that if the result led to a strike they could kiss their own pensions goodbye. I guess they listened as most of the value is in the final few years. Result? A gobbledegook questionnaire and no defence of the final salary principle for new starters at BA.
But, crucially, the BACC KNOW that there will never be stomach for a strike at BA.
This fact encourages our flight ops management, many of whom openly hold the pilot workforce in contempt, to go on tweaking the “environmental push factors” designed to get rid of as many of us old folks with our pesky accrued employment and pension rights as possible.
Top amongst these factors has to be the Attendance Management Process, or AMP.
For the rest of BA this is a multi-stage process centred on support in returning to work. For the flightcrew scum (and yes, folks at Waterworld where such acts of genius as one-source catering supply is dreamed-up do think of us in precisely those terms – I’ve overheard them) it’s a four step tango where step one is a FORMAL interview and step FOUR is a P45.
Needless to say, our cabin crews do not participate at all and, arguably, the enforcement of the scheme as currently applied to flightcrew on them would, I predict, create an all-out strike.
The BACC chair’s assurance that the first person unjustly sacked by the AMP will lead to a ballot is, in the light of the above, one can allege, tissue thin. As for the Director of Flight Ops assuring us that this is just an administrative process – how laughable! Its like a fox announcing to the chicken shed that he’s turned vegetarian.
BA has a clear-cut policy in dealing with BALPA. It is to demonstrate to its BA pilot members that BALPA is neutered in the industrial arena. It might as well become a mutual society providing legal assistance and financial advice to members and confine itself to that for all the good it can do otherwise.
Look at all the examples where BA succeeds and BALPA fails.
Bunked rest for the B777 fleet – err, no.
Bus routes on the back to backs – err no.
Preservation of one contract for BA flightcrew – err, no the LGW guys get Carmen rostering, the Regions give concessions to “fund” the introduction of new aircraft, and BA still outsource it, (how management must have laughed – “Suckerrrrs”!), then proceed to screw the out-sourced company to the ground, (familiar huh? Gate Gourmet please note!).
Preservation of a broadly common pay scale – err, no. New starters get a lousy deal on a DC scheme, BA say they may negotiate and BALPA puts up with a promise, as usual! COME-ON GUYS! You’ve been had -AGAIN!!
A fair AMP for all in the company – err, no: Flightcrew get a shortcut to redundancy, cabin crew get nothing imposed at all and the rest of BA indulges in a multi-stage tea and biscuits care group.
And so on and on and Ariston. BA has a self-proclaimed policy to be the meanest player on the block and it WILL get there, sooner than we think.
Last edited by ShortfinalFred; 1st Sep 2005 at 11:18.