So VirginFun you're voting yes becasue it's getting boring now !! That sounds like someone who is not in it for the longhaul... so to speak, the argument is about as productive as someone saying VOTE No becasue we might get more that way.
So we vote NO in massive majority against the companies poor offers and at the first sign of a half good offer you want to throw the towel in because you are bored - please see that this is the time to start working togethor. The management have regained a little respect with this offer - they are now willing to listen to us and take us seriously but people are suggesting throwing the towel in the pool ??? Human behaviour baffles me sometimes.
Anyway for in depth thoughts on the offer once again there is a poster on cabincrew DOT com that has written some stuff about the offer, posted below.....
WARNING - Might take 10 mins to read it's a bit long.....
Having spent a bit of time now researching and taking into account various sources of information I am now in a position to offer my thoughts on your thoughts :-)
Obviously we are all aware how long it has taken for us all (the crew and the company) to get this far in the negotiation process - it's a time consuming process and it is only naturally that people are starting (or a long time ago) get sick of the whole thing - I know I am however I am also aware that, "Rome was not built in a day".
Those who have worked for the company for a long period of time or indeed those who have recently joined and intend to work for us for a long period of time then how long this takes is not an issue - but getting it right is.
Why have we taken so long to get to this point ?
If we look historically at all the offers to date I think it is clear to see the answer. Excluding the current offer, every other offer to date had been totally unacceptable - perhaps ;- the company knew this and it is a tactic to drag the whole thing out such that people start to lose the will to pursue it any further
- If the company "stalled" with poor offers it would be in a position to offer a large carrot to crew - offer the backdated pay before Christmas promise again, same as last time round.
- maybe the company is so out of touch with it's crew that they really genuinely thought the crew would go for any of the previous offers.
Well those are three answers I have pondered - I know which ones I believe to be true.
What would you do if you were a manager and had a large workforce and had to undertake payrise negotiations ?
There are several ways to skin a cat - You have been allocated a budget of £X for the negotiations, anything you can keep from this budget is a bonus to the company (and perhaps your negotiating team). Do you start by offering the full budget - no. no one does, if they are buying a car, house, dog the seller always pitches high and the buyer low...
So we had the first string of offers, each with appalling conditions and told after each one that there will be no further improvements or negotiations and this is the final offer. Each offer should gradually improve in the hope that at some point more and more of the workforce will feel that the negotiations have either; - A) Achieved the goals that individual had in mind - do you know what your personal goals are in the negotiations ?
- B) The offers have reached a point where they will not improve any further
- C) I just dont care anymore I'm sick of it and a the backdated pay will be handy for Christmas
Bare with me I know I might be teaching "suck eggs"
So eventually due to either A,B or C or a combination of the above a majority vote is carried through. Now there has been a slight deviation from the above tactic in our case - the final offer (before the current one) introduced a few extra appalling conditions - the removal of aircrew on the 600, the modification to airshare and all the other attached strings - naturally it is rejected, now a new offer is presented following the management probing and apparently trying to establish why we have been rejecting offers (Did they really not Know ?)
So our current offer has removed many of the previous conditions and has targeted specific roles who have influence on/over the workforce in their day to day role - this is a very clever move by the company - they are aware that some FSM's and CSS's are speaking with crews about the offers - by targeting said roles with better conditions they are hoping that the message from said individuals will change - also they are effectively targeting a set group with the conditions that will hopefully carry a strong % of votes.
still with me ;-)....... The above is my take on the situation that has developed and a bit of thought regarding the current situation, now lets look at the offer comprehensively.
This is by far the best offer to date, this was also probably driven home by all the poor conditions that have accompanied each offer so far - especially the last one and the removal of conditions with this offer.
Now re the current offer - Does it achieve the goals of your vote - what you wanted your union to achieve on your behalf ? If not then A) above has not been fulfilled, However the new offer brings C) into the equation Xmas money and well there is probably a bit of B) lingering too -this is all taking far too long.
The offer -
Basic Rise - A rise of 4.8% in Year 1- no doubt about it this is a good offer, it is above current RPI of 4.1% great news.
Year 2 - the rise will be inline with RPI again -
The company has used illustration figures of 3.5% for all of its tables attached to the offer. RPI is forecast to be lower next year than at present. Forecasts have it at circa 3% though the lower the government can get it the better, this will be established through a change primarily in CPI and interest rates, looking at a graph back to 1999 we have followed the US on interest rates and they have now begun cutting rates. This means it will not be long before our rates fall in line with the US meaning our RPI will fall also therefore I would like to see the company change the offer to reflect YEAR 2 pay rise as fixed % e.g. 3.5% minimum OR RPI whichever is higher ( as has been said above if the government could get RPI down to 2% that would be our year 2 payrise under the current offer)
(source of data ttp://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article2183.html)
Trip Pay - Trip pay has been increased in the following fashion - higher percentages to FSM's and CSS's due to the extra managerial role they undertake - the table from the offer is here though I have added percentages to show the % gain over 1 year and 2 years. Unfortunately I feel the trip pay is still less than I would like to see. The last offer offered 15% over 2 years to each role, this should be reinstated to the roles which are only achieving 7-10% gain over 2 years - whislt still reflecting the extra workload of CSS and FSM.
Format Role, Current pay, Year 1 Increase, Year 2 increase
FSM£45¬¬ £50/ 11%£ ¬¬ £60/33%
CSS£40¬¬ £45 / 13%¬¬ £50 / 25%
SCC£37.40 ¬¬ £39.50 / 6%¬¬£41 /10%
CC/IFBT £36.40¬¬ £38.50 / 6%¬¬£40 / 10%
IFBT+5 £37.40¬¬£39.50 / 6%¬¬ £40 / 7%
Part time for 10 years Service FSM's
In Order to recognise and reward experience in their management role. with such an offer there needs to be a process that ensures an FSM can come back to fulltime employment if they so wish. Many firms have offered part time but once the employee takes it there have been cases where they have been unable to be reinstated as full time and the company has used this to reduce costs. Imagine several FSM's going part time and being denied the opportunity to return to full time work, in the interim the company just gets CSS's to work up - the outcome is the company avoids paying a full FSM wage and a CSS operate the role for less, a senior works as a CSS etc etc - There need to be procedure in place that protects against this. e.g. for each PT FSM contract offered an FSM course is offered to a CSS.
Looking at the big picture it is disappointing that "loyalty" as the topic is called in the offer is not offered to all crew members who have been loyally in the company for 10 years.
Crew down payments
Crew down payments have not been addressed on an individual basis, this was a target mention by the union which they have failed to address to a satisfactory outcome (this was another one of my vote goals). Crew down payments will be increased by 4.8% in line with the basic - I personally feel this needs readdressing in order to promote the correct number of crews.
Working up Payments
Similar to above - requires to be addressed to promote correct crew levels - see example above of part time FSM, CSS working up etc
Monthly Standby
As has been mentioned there is the extra month of standby though as Babs has highlighted the stability block means it is the same as the standby block offered to part time crew - if must fit to the confines of your roster. This does make planning and childcare a little easier to plan however for commuters it is still a pain. However here is the catch - Only one in 5 (in 3 years) has to be a stability block. I can imagine the following happening - 1. Stability blocks will never be issued in peak seasons - when its hardest to commute 2. the stability block will always be your last block of 5. So what happens when you are promoted does you standby count remain the same ? I recall in one deal they spoke about resetting it to zero on promotion - if they did that you would never receive a stability block (as hopefully within 3 years one would be promoted ) - grey area but just thinking about it.
Loss of Guaranteed Weekend on Standby Month.
This is to be replaced by 2 requested days off - which the company does not have to honour. Standby requirements are generally highest when sickness levels are highest - weekends - or the days that wrap around them also - hence virgins current definition of weekend in the current standby rules. I very much doubt anyone requesting a weekend off in a standby month will be granted it - that is why the company is trying to get rid of it - their demand is highest at this point.
-edit to add - how about some compromise - We do the extra month of standby to make 5 in 3 years and in return the company makes 2 of them stability blocks and we keep weekends off, or 3 of them stability blocks and we go to requested days off for standby.
Request 12 months of leave
For some this will be great for others not so great, again a grey area. The offer talks about having a monthly view on 12 months standby - what will take precedence the booking of your leave requests OR the standby view i.e. do you work your leave around standby or vice versa. Also at present if you are promoted your leave no longer has to be honoured and you can potentially lose your 6 months of leave - in the new method could you lose your whole years leave ?
Profits/Airshare
Someone mentioned profits being low, we have already established that this is due to the company heavily investing in itself - this is great for the company but not so much for us, every pound spent on a new club house is less in our pockets because the company does not achieve its targets for profit share.. in short we get less. A change to the airshare system as the aircrew negotiated would be prudent here, their airshare is calculated on company turnover not profit
This years figures profits this year dropped from 77.5mil to 6.6mil, sales achieved record levels by 13% from £1.88B to £2.4B - pax increased 10.5% - Nigeria losses cost the company £19.9 Million but it's sales rose from £24million to £83million)
An agreement like the pilots have would be in our best interests.
Union Recommendation
The union is strongly recommending we accept this offer, yet they also recommended the last appalling offer. Unfortunately I dont feel I can follow the recommendation of the union following their last recommendation.
Summary
In summary the above are my thoughts and my thoughts only - I feel unable to accept this offer as it has not achieved all my goals, the offer of the back pay (which incidentally is not not back pay to date it is up till the end of November so includes the next 2 months) doesn't interest me it is a short term gain, rather than big picture.
I would like the union to revisit the company addressing the points i have raised.
remember to view the offer in isolation, not comapring it to previous offers and ask yourself, "does it achive what I was hoping for before any offers came out ?"
Edited by eyesnears - 30 September 2007 at 4:32pm