Devellish, to answer your points:
Imagine you were running a huge multi billion dollar business that was very profitable. One day after years of 'cordial' relations and many discussions a union comes along ands asks for one big thing (let's call it all pilots on one seniority list) or else they'll ballot their members to strike.
It sounds a lot like holding you to ransom but nevertheless you seek to reassure. You state that there is no threat.
Despite all of this the position remains 'give us this or we'll strike'.
That is a pure, unmitigated threat. As a negotiator you have no place to go to meet halfway. Whichever way you cut it one side wins and one side loses.
You are rather simplifying the issue. If one accepts that responsible representation through a trade union is desirable then it would seem prudent to develop a sound working relationship with that union. Recent examples of where BA and BALPA have had such a relationship and where it has paid dividends were the recent changes regarding the pension deficit and work coverage problems. The pilot group are not a bunch of ignorant sheep wanting their way at all costs a la 1970s miners/printers/car workers, etc. The changes to pensions and our bidding system were fiercely opposed by many but successful agreement, despite many unpalatable changes, was reached. Result company problem(s) resolved and pilots accepting of the solutions.
With OpenLies BALPA first asked to discuss the issue formally with the company at the beginning of 2007. The company flatly refused. Eventually late last year discussions did take place. After much talking what it boiled down to was that the company wanted OpenLies to operate entirely separately from BA Mainline.......except for engineering, marketing, ticketing, management and, of course, financing. BALPA agreed to proposed Ts & Cs but nope, BA pilots were to be completely excluded. Now why can that be?
The management have given 'assurances' that BA mainline Ts & Cs were not going to be affected. Having been in BA for some considerable number of years I have heard assurances before. They are valid until the next business plan or change of management. If OpenLIes was just going to remain a small operation then fine but I would place good money that the long term plan is to expand OpenLies and gradually shift BA business across - new aeroplanes, new routes - and let BA mainline stagnate. It has happened in Australia and it has happened in America. If BA's assurances were to be believed then they would surely have nothing to fear from a common seniority list would they? If OpenLies is a roaring success then BALPA would be foolish to start making unrealistic demands to the point of making the operation unprofitable, that would be no use to anybody. BALPA does not have a history of doing do so either e.g. LGW.
So what was BALPA supposed to do? Say OK BA we believe you or ask for what we considered was a no cost guarantee against future shafting i.e. a common seniority list?
Striking is a complete anathema to me and I suspect the majority of my colleagues but I learned the hard way long ago that if I do not stand up for myself it is certain that I will be taken advantage of. BALPA exhausted every possible opportunity to resolve the issue and BA's parting shot at the end of the ACAS conciliation was that if BALPA announce a strike BA would sue. Now who was threatening whom?
The full story leading up to the withdrawal from the court case has not been publicised yet but we are waiting with interest to learn how we ended up in such a humiliating and costly mess.
The TUC are holding a seminar very shortly on the whole Article 43 ruling in the Viking and Laval case because it will certainly be challenged and most likely overturned eventually because it is a plain misuse of the legislation for it to be used to prevent lawful industrial protest when it was designed to prevent anti-competitive behaviour.
The one thing BA has achieved is a unified, angry and disgruntled workforce. A masterpiece of modern industrial relations by BA whether you despise unions or not. It will come back to bite Willie Walsh and big time too.
Pilots - your union has played fast and loose with your money. They have destroyed any credibilty they had as a moderate union
Knowing many of the individuals involved I do not believe that and, like yourself, await the details of what happened with interest. I shall be the first to complain if what you say is true.
.... and have possibly started the unravelling of benchmark Ts and Cs.
No that was started by the likes of Mr. O'Leary and Willie Walsh with OpenLies.
In the longer term this may be a good thing - I know of only a handful of industries which still sustain seniority based systems.
Good for who? Certainly not pilots. Seniority has been debated to death. As we all have precisely the same qualifications then how does one promote? The person who carries least fuel? The person who is prepared to carry the most defects? I worked for a company many moons ago where an individual would eventually be sacked if they put too many defects in the tech. log especially if that defect would ground an aeroplane. Too much payload? We had to make a deliberate error in the loadsheet to bring the figures within limits. Don't like it? F... off and get another job then. I kid you not. That is what happens in airlines without seniority and without unions.
And what does seniority get you? Well, it gives a mechanism to ensure that a wholly inequitable system of incremental pay that ensures that the very top earners can pull £145k whilst the bottom boys and girls barely breach £30k. On top of that there exists a whole host of other potentially discriminatory rules relating to bidding rights.
Smacks of socialism to me. What is overlooked that the bottom rates of pay are still good and that 99% of people look forward to and will reach the giddy heights. I am open to persuasion on a more equitable system but I bet that over a career an individual would earn less. My pal worked long and hard for poor money before he reached the lucrative years of his profession - consultant in his branch of medicine. Very similar to pilots and seniority.
Out of this whole mad escapade you can take comfort from the following - by averting a strike BA allowed the employee bonus to be paid.
Ah yes, the bonus. Well without boring everybody to death. The management bonus was based on profitablity but the average employee's bonus was also linked to....wait for it......punctuality! Managers have done very nicely thank you. Employees will also receive a bonus but, although I am sure we are all grateful, it pales into insignificance when compared to a manager's bonus and has conditions attached which made a sizeable payout as likely as winning the lottery! Personally I think bonuses are a debatable issue anyway but that is another argument.
But look ahead - disaster looms for the sector as a whole and only the strong and flexible will survive. Your union does not pay your wages - most pilots I know would find it very tough to be poor and principled over paid and pragmatic. Perhaps it is time to start asking real questions about what it is that your Union is protecting? A system or your pay?
I cannot argue with your first assertion and looking back to when we (pilots) took a pay cut during the first Gulf war I do not believe we can be accused of being unaware or unrealistic regarding the company's finances. We also made changes to our terms to finance the engineers severance package after the grounding of the B747 Classic following the September 11th atrocity.
If BA had a poor Industrial Relations history then that is part of the mix. However, the onus is also on the union to avoid pitching up with utterly mental demands that leave the company no other option.
I agree but BALPA was not making 'mental demands'.
As for Jim McAusland making a 'well informed' plea to the City to unseat Willie - I nearly fell off my chair. There is very little investor sympathy towards any Union (nothing personal) but I think that even my mates can see through a deposition request from a Union that is in dispute with its CEO. It's a cold hard world.
It made me squirm a little too! However Willie Walsh's track record is not good on the industrial relations front. But then he was a former union leader so perhaps that is where he learnt to be so unreasonable.
BA pilots are - in general - wonderfully trained and well selected individuals. That is, of course, in part due to a whole bunch of systematic management policies and activity - it doesn't happen by magic. Managers have to agree that it is desirable, spend the money and manage the process. Pilots are a massive part of that but it seems astonishingly arrogant to suggest that BA Pilots are good despite their management.
BA Technical and training management are, on the whole, well respected by the pilots. The rest of BA's management are held in utter contempt. If you had witnessed and experienced them from the inside you may well agree. Lord King/Virgin case, fuel surcharge cartel, T5 to name but three of the disgraceful and embarrassing ways some of our managers have behaved.
BA is good because it is a good company (in a rubbish sector, by the way). What is also thunderingly arrogant is the notion that pilots from outside the airline (a pool which BA also draws from) are in some way inferior. What happens when a BA pilot is recruited? Do they walk through a smokey portal like on 'Stars in Their Eyes' to emerge as some form of Sky God? I think not - they benefit from training and environment that is supported by - guess who - British Airways PLC, not BALPA (although they appear to have a valuable contribution to training a technical).
This whole issue of standards to which you allude arose because BA, during the OpenLies, talks said that OpenLies pilots would not be allowed to automatically join mainline, they would have to go through the whole application process because 'they had been recruited to a different standard'. It was not BALPA or BA pilots who alleged that OpenLies pilots were in some way inferior but BA management.
- but I do not think that they are the industry-screwing force that BALPA claim... ...some airlines are asking pilots to PAY to be on the aircraft. Are OpenSkies doing that? Apparently not. Some airlines pay less than OpenSkies (quite a few looking at the figures here)....
Having seen the OpenLies contract I am amazed anybody would want to take a job with them.
My apologies for the length of post.