I'm afraid I have to take issue with some of your points there Flying Tom.
The fact is that BARP was a new concept for BA who had been through several years of financial loss and wanted to cut long term costs. BALPA never accepted BARP but members may have been persuaded by a flight ops letter outlining that the pension pot was limited, their pension was under attack and allowing BARP in would take pressure off the fixed pot allowing higher payments into NAPS.
This first quote is completely incorrect. BA had one (thats right, one) year of financial loss. Nobody was swayed by a letter suggesting that allowing BARPS to exist would ease the pressure on NAPS by allowing higher payments, in fact I don't believe any such letter was ever sent. What BA pilots were presented with was a '
fait accompli', the unilateral closing of NAPS to
all BA staff without negotiation. You clearly think that BA pilots should have walked out at that stage in order to force the reopening of NAPS for pilots who had yet to join BA. BALPA made it quite clear that that sort of action would not be legal; action could only be taken when the first member joined on BARPS. When balloted on the matter, BA pilots made it clear they did not believe that was a battle that could be won.
AFAIK, no other employee group in any company in the UK has fought such a battle and won, not even the British Gas Employees. They also made it clear they wanted a significanly improved BARPS and that goal remains.
I trusted BA's reputation as a quality, fair employer
Sorry mate! You should have spoken to one of us first!
on checking I realise that the calculation should have been based on pensionable pay which no one tells you is 80% of basic or about half of gross.
Again, the information on pensionable pay is readily available, and I do mean readily, on here, on PPJN, by asking BALPA, by asking BA pilots, by all manner of means. This is stuff you really should have found out for yourself as so many of your new colleagues did. You'd have no way of knowing just how rubbish the companys contribution to BARPS would be as even BALPA didn't know, but the pensionable pay bit is one you'll have to take responsbility for.
NAPSters still bleet "you knew what you were signing up to" when clearly I and they did not. If they did then I am disgusted that a unionised workforce allowed it to happen
As I've stated above, nobody knew exactly what you were signing up to but a fair bit of information was available to at least start ringing alarm bells. Your comments about a unionised workforce allowing things to happen suggests an alarming naivety on your part. If it was as simple as allowing or not allowing something to happen then BA would not be recruting any new pilots right now because they'd all still be at Easy, Ryanair, My Travel et al 'not allowing' the managers to shaft them and getting better pay and conditions. Why did
you join BA if its so easy to improve your lot elsewhere?
You have every right to be bitter about how poor the companys contribution rate to your pension is, but at least do it from an informed standpoint instead of suggesting some grand conspiracy theory amongst BA pilots to deliberately shaft you. We don't keep NAPS without you, you don't get better BARPs without us.