"As we prepare for the final stage of the movement of crew and services into Terminal 5, in Waterside a specialist group of 5 managers are working on a top-secret project called "Operation Columbus", in partnership with Hewitt Associates, an American outsourcing and corporate restructuring specialist.
This group has been secretly working for a number of months on a potential huge bombshell for the entire cabin crew community.
They are looking at the potential feasibility of setting up a subsidiary operation to "employ" all cabin crew at Heathrow and Gatwick.
In simple terms, the plan is to slash costs in a manner that we have
previously not thought possible by simply ending, over a short period of
time, the current terms, conditions, pay scales and agreements of all
current BA cabin crew.
This will be done by setting up a separate structure to employ cabin crew
specifically on lower cost terms and conditions.
Legally, this new operation cannot resemble current structures, so all
rank and pay scales agreements etcetera, would not be replicated to avoid any potential legal challenge over breach of contract of existing employees.
Routes could then be gradually moved from the current crew operation into
this new organisation. Crew who decline to move will either be bought out
of current contracts or be simply left behind as the work moves. The legal
work on how to do this within current legislation has already been carried
out.
The project covers many detailed areas including:
A fixed hourly rate of pay.
The removal of all current ranks.
The ending of all variable pay premiums - CAT, back-to-back, destination,
long day, one down, early report, DOA and ETP etc.
Set salary rate.
All current agreements ended in favour of a LGW style mixed flying option.
LGW is also considered within this project as even this base's reduced
agreement is considered to be too complex and costly.
This is worrying and extremely frightening news, both to us and to you,
but we feel obligated to make you aware of its existence.
We now have no alternative but to challenge Simon Talling-Smith to issue
an immediate statement regarding our concerns and indeed the concerns of the entire cabin crew community."