BALPA and BA talks breakdown

[biddedout]

HS

Simple with BA involved?? No, it never is.

Through yet more creative accounting, BA will ensure that as a subsidiary, OS never makes a significant profit if at all. Just as at Bacon and BA City Flyer (the new one) Mgt will constantly moan on about there not being any money in the pot and certainly nothing spare for a pay-rise.

WW (if he is still around) will make his usual threat “make a profit or you will closed”, half the pilots will believe this bull and the CC will be left powerless to do anything. They will be seen as ineffective by the disparate workforce and as usual “BALPA” will be blamed for everything. Just ask anyone at BACF. Manager = payrise / bonus : Worker = 0.

The secret to managing with this subsidiary issue, is to demand as part of the deal that representatives have full access to management accounts, (yes, pigs might fly) so that when Mgt claim that they are paying the market rate for handling, they actually mean the market rate and not the BA special internal rate.

It is becoming very clear that Bacon’s lack of profitability was down to the fact that they were paying way over the odds for services, often services procured by or from BA. I have heard of a factor of four in some instances. As an example, when BAR was merged into Bacon, BAR Handling (BHX) was spun off as yet another subsidiary. Not surprisingly, it instantly achieved an operating margin of 10% by selling services to its one and only customer – BA Connect. It’s two directors also happened to be directors of BA Con. Bonuses all round boys…

BALPA needs to be very careful about how it manages the CC situation whatever happens.