I find it surprising that someone can find it surprising that teachers earn more than cabin crew. I hope this was a pleasant surprise?
I can understand someone wanting to protect the terms and conditions that they currently possess. I can also understand an employer wanting to reduce those terms and conditions as much as possible. BA are to some extent held over a barrel by their cabin crew because there are so many of them to replace, however, the bottom line is that a very large proportion of the general population could be trained to do the job, and also would like to do it. Would they do such a good job or be so dedicated if they were earning less? There in lies the crux of the argument. Unfortunately, BA management do not really care about that. They do not think of money being an incentive to do your job well. They just want to pay as little as they can get away with.
Apparently BA want to save £37m pa from cabin crew. Well that is not many days of strike action, but at the same time, Willie has a point to prove to strikers, so how far will he go to break the cabin crew? This is the most important question. One thing for sure, BASSA need to be totally convinced that their action is legal with all the Ts crossed and the Is dotted.
I personally think Willie will succeed in his mission to reduce cabin crew costs, but it will take him longer than he hopes. He has just pretty much replaced the whole workforce of long haul Gatwick crews by using 6 month temporary contractors at Heathrow and upping recruitment at shorthaul Gatwick for a while before hand. Could he do something similar in reverse for Heathrow?
One thing for sure, he will not stop at the cabin crew. Every workgroup is under attack. He just needs to do them one at a time, so that he can spread half truths about how one individual workgroup is fouling up the progress of the whole company when all other groups have agreed to changes!