A simple pax of 41 years paxing experience speaking.
To the CC. I must say: "Great sympathy with your situation but ... tough, that is life in the UK in the 21st century." I have said the same in the Pilots Strike thread and it seems, to an outsider, that their grievance is greater. They are seeking to make the company pay what they have already earned and you are seeking to make BA continue paying into the future.
Flying Lawyer in post #76 of this thread said it all and I would add, that bad managment is not the preserve of BA. Those companies where a decision to rationalise is started at the top and promulgated downwards with clear explanations, sympathy and alternatives? Nope, I ain't seen many of them either.
bermudatriangle
The strike vote sends a clear message to Willie Walsh that his bullying, blinkered, misguided leadership that he has brought to this once wonderful company has to change.
Eeerrr - No! It tells him that CC have made a crucial error of thinking that it is the 1970s. Strike action will not be seen as valid by the public. The only ones who are likely to get that support are teachers and medical staff.
Why? Because most folks in the UK work steadily and have to meet high payments for housing, due to the tragic way in which the property market has been allowed to let rip by the banks and government. Folks see their conditions of contract eroded all the time - why not yours too?
One of the problems for those that join the airline world is that your whole career tends to be in the airline world (naturally so for flight crew). This means that you only hear about the loss of conditions in other fields at second hand. Yes, of course, your families and spouses may work in loval govt or commerce but you run the risk of only seeing how the airline world was 20 years ago and it has
always been different to the rest of us. After all - that is why many of you went into it!
Dogs_ears_up
If I'm wrong, then I intend to return to this thread and apologise - I don't wish for BA crew to lose, I just think that they will.
Yep, that goes for me. I'm sorry but this strike will fail not least as BA would rather the CC strike and damage the company than that the pilots strike. You can replace CC faster and more cheaply then pilots. The qualities and training for CC can be met much more easily. If the CC strike and damage the company, then the FC have an even bigger problem on their hands. If they had co-ordinated and made the two strikes coincide?? Just possibly, they might have moved the mountain but that will not happen and each union is going their own way. Once again, just as BA need.
I am sorry to see other people gaining bad management and then losing their conditions of contract BUT that is the same gain and loss that I have seen and experienced in the past 16 years since the recession of 1990/91 turned the tables. The airline world is far behind others in this process.
You might say that you have negotiated all that you can and had to draw a line somewhere, just remember that the mgmt and board have been preparing for this far longer than you.
Once again, I'm sorry.