The Virgin Strike Thread II

[coolhandlu]

I don't imagine you will get much support if you choose to picket The Office.

The crew are not the only vital part of the organisation. There are a miriad of critical jobs done by dedicated people, many of whom earn less than crew, without which there wouldn't be an airline. Without Engineering there wouldn't be any planes for you to fly on. Without the Contact Center there wouldn't be sufficient passengers to fly on them. Without the IT systems we wouldn't be taking any bookings OR payment for bookings. The list goes on and on and on.

No one that works in The Office (or any of the other VAA buildings) can be expected to support your demands, not least because neither you, the Union, VAA management nor any of the ground based staff know what those demands are. It appears from these forums that this is the Unions fault, not the crews.. but that's irrelevent now.

All I see, and my colleagues can see, is that the Union negotiated a deal, TWICE, recommended it, and it was rejected. How anyone can blame VAA management is beyond me. They aren't clairvoyant, how were they supposed to know that Union members would turn down a Union recommended deal?

If your threatened industrial action is disruptive enough, you WILL threaten the future of Virgin Atlantic. Therefore you WILL threaten the jobs of all the people who work so hard to get you the planes, on the tarmac, at the right time, with sufficient passengers for you to be able to fly. Do you expect to receive support from these people? These people, who, at the very least, can now expect to receive nothing or yet another less than the rate of inflation payrise due at least partly to this dispute?

The infamously good Virgin crew are only part of the reason passengers fly with us. Many of the pax on any given flight will have chosen it simply because it is the cheapest fare available to them, or perhaps because we are the airline flying Virgin Holidays passengers to their destination, or perhaps because of the generous flying club rewards we offer compared to other airlines. Or because Upper Class costs only the same as BA business class. I could go on. The point is, crew are not the only department that make VAA what it is. Yes, you can break us if you choose. You can loose me my job, you can loose yourselves your jobs.

I personally agree with you long service posters who ask why you should have to leave after making a career with Virgin. I agree there should be some sort of recognition of long service that enables you to stay. As many others have stated however, when it comes to wages, market forces win. If Virgin can crew their flights to a satisfactory level with an apparently bottomless pit of young people who can survive on low wages, then they will. Simple as that.

Do me, yourselves, and the rest of VAA a favour. Call off the strike and get back to the negotiating table. While you're at it, tell the rest of us what it is EXACTLY that you are after. I am sure if the ground staff understood what it was you wanted and why (and it was reasonable), we would support you. If you had the support of non-crew too, you would be unstoppable.