The hourly rate is not on the table though! I have been in to the BASSA office (both the Compass one and their lovely bedsit) and asked to see the proposal from the company to introduce the hourly rate and NO ONE can produce it.
But even if we did go on the hourly rate do you *really* think we would be that hard up? Look at the SFG pay for the ex-NSP routes, all of the trips that we used to do based on meal allowances are now worth nore under their hourly-rate arrangement.
Every time someone starts banging on about how the hourly rate wil be so bad on the bus or on the aircraft I suggest they go and ask the pilots how they are getting on with their hourly rate as I don't hear many complaints coming from the other side of the door.
If the money that BA is going to make available for an hourly rate includes all the money that they would have spent on meal allowances (and DES, NIA and DOA I think) rolled into one big pot and then divided out by the total number of flying hours that every crew member does and divvied out. It's the same pot of money just being divided differently. Therefore I fail to see how if it is the same pot of money that's being given out AND the tax office have said they will not tax it, how it can be said that we would be worse off. True, when we go to NRT we won't be on $$$ for meals but when we go to DEL, HRE, BOM, JFK et al we will be making up for it. I for one go to the 'other' places much more than I go to NRT so for me it can only be a good thing.