Can i just say that us pilots are more than a little baffled at BASSA's timing and thinking on this ballot. Strike action normally has a long prior negotiating history and as far as we can tell this all came from a show of hands at a meeting (bound to be the most militant crew). I believ BASSA have told you that pensions are involved, i dont think this can be the case Negotiations are not complete and you cannot legally ballot until a failiure to agree, which has definately not happened yet (that said if and when it does we'll see you on the picket line)
I've just picked these from the first BASSA newsletter thingy from earlier. With the reasons why most of the nigels think its a bit quick to ballot
1) As of Feb 1st the upperdeck Psr is gone. The ultimate goal is
have a 2 more gone by the end of 2007 leaving 1 CSD & 1 Psr on
longhaul aircraft. The CSD role is also being looked at. Do we need one??
If this is true about the upperdeck purser then fine, but i havent seen anything apart from from BASSA that BA have imposed this. That said, long term, do we really need 5 supervisory crew on the 747? I think the upper deck purser is the wrong one to go myself. But if the promotional prospects were lost i think some form of extra allowance/training for upper deck crew would be good. As BASSA agreed to go to CSM and Psr at LGW on the 777 it does make it harder to justify the extra Psr ar LHR.
As for the CSD bit this is classic scaremongering. BA have never suggested this and ts certainly not a reason to strike now.
3) SFG been told BA can no longer afford downtown hotels. Airport
hotels are being sort.
Great spelling. But as i understand it the Location and some of the standards element of your hotel agreement was negotiated away a few years ago. Hence you're in Midrand we're in Sandton in JNB. And Club Quarters/ Grand Hyatt in SFO. BA havent made moves elsewhere as it is cheaper to keep us together. If your hotel agreement already allows this how can you strike now?
6) No big figures for severance. Statutory Minimum.
Well then noone will take it and BA wont lose any of the more senior crew, Thats more BA's problem than BASSA's, were not talking compulsory redundancies here.
7) T5 report time 1hr 10 before dept. Arrival 30mins.
This will take SFO, LAX & NRT (new routing) out of LR and make them
night stops.
Well the talk of NRT is utter rubbish, there is no shorter routing we already go the quickest way. The other 2, well T5 will result in shorter report times, so i dare say some flights will become nightstops and LR payments will be reduced, same applies to us(we'll most likely lose 4th man to HKG and GRU amongst others). But they can only reduce the trip length if its in your industrial agreement already (SFO will be similar duty day in T5 to SEA now), nowhere has anyone suggested changes there. So can you really strike about doing something thats already in your agreements?
Old/New pay rates : Very good aim but why now? Its never been mentioned before.
EG300 : With you 100%
By bringing so many issues to the table at once BASSA have just given WW an excellent opportunity to try and break the union, this is clearly now the plan (I dont think it was before the Ballot was announced) and thats why he's brought in other issues such as the hourly rate etc and started the dirty war in negotiations. By bringing so many items in you have to decide which ones will you come back to work for, because you cant win on them all.
The other thing is, will this unite the crew? I cant see Gatwick striking for these reasons at all (it would be illegal for most of them : secondary action) The SH crew wont strike for LH issues and vice versa, I suspect thats the reason New/Old contract was included otherwise its pretty much all LH. I suspect most of the European crew wont strike and I suspect BA will be prepared to let it run a few days whilst crew lose money/get disrupted and start trickling back to work. Theres high stakes here.
Good luck whatever is decided.