bmi - Vote of no confidence in CEO Nigel Turner
Yes, that is correct.
Balpa, (to their credit this time) very promptly jumped in at the end of last week to make a clear and firm response to the recent incredible acts of the bmi CEO Nigel Turner.
bmi mainline Flight Crew received payslips at the end of last week showing that their January pay reflected the 2009 pay rise (effective Jan 1st, and RPI + 0.5%).
This was the third year of a negotiated and balloted 3 year pay deal resulting from a long and involved dispute with the company in 2006. The three year deal was not requested by BALPA but was requested by Nigel Turner at the time. One presumes that they wanted some longer term definition to expected future costs running up to the shareholder put/call options of late 2008/2009 and also wanted to save management time. No fantastic sums involved, just RPI plus a bit for 2007,8 and 9.
The agreement was kept to for 2007 and 8, and Nigel Turner confirmed to staff in a memo in late November 2008 that although times were hard "....we made a commitment to a three year deal and I believe in honouring our commitments."
And so last week's pay slips looked ok.
And then the Machiavellian (and possibly illegal ?) acts that bmi is becoming well known for, in its inept, insensitive and cruel handling of its loyal and hard working staff took place.
Shortly after receiving the payslips, staff received a memo from NT saying he had now changed his mind from the late Nov 2008 memo , and that there would now be a pay freeze in 2009. Nothing about "honouring commitments" anymore.
And it got worse.
Last week crews were paid in many instances the increased amounts reflecting the 2009 pay deal, only then to find the next day that this money had been withdrawn by the company from their bank accounts. This was all done without any pre-notificiation from the company that this highly questionable act was taking place. To make matters worse flight crew then were not re-paid until a day or so later and this was then at the old 2008 pay level.
The consequence of this were bounced debits, mortgage payment issues etc, as funds that were meant to be in crew bank accounts were not when they should have been, and the amounts were not as expected or as had been notified by payslips.
The two main issues were that:
Crews were working for the airline throughout January on the agreement that pay levels had been increased from Jan 1st under the negotiated agreement of 2006.
You can't really change your mind on this one month in to the new pay year just because it's time to actually pay the staff what they expect they were owed. But that's what NT did.
And crews were working to a negotiated and balloted pay agreement from 2006 that NT structured himself and had very recently confirmed would be honoured.
NT has effectively awarded the pay rise, and then taken it away without notice or consultation. Which then means it is a forced pay cut. The pilots would gladly have talked to management about it to arrive at a negotiated solution given the present times - but were never ever given the chance, only subjected to NT's ham-fisted management.
Hope all that makes sense and helps to explain why bmi flight crew & BALPA have all become so enraged with NT over the last few days because of the manner in which he has acted, and the percieved lack of morality and integrity that has been shown.
But this most recent episode is also against a continuing difficult background of bmi management which had already unsettled staff.
Since the announcement of the Lufthansa share purchase in October there has been no notification at all from Lufthansa or bmi management about what the future holds for the airline or the staff. Which leaves staff rather worried about their jobs and the future shape of the airline. And nobody knows when anything will be known. But Lufthansa management continue to muse about it in interviews to the press and say nothing to bmi staff. Nothing.
To add to that, the company has in the last few weeks told the pilots that they will allow cadet pilots who are not, and may never be employees of bmi, to fly passengers around because they will pay bmi for it. This will be done without passengers knowing about it and this operation has been set up without any prior consultation with the company's pilots or BALPA, which unfortunately is typical of bmi management.
And that's pissed a lot of the pilots off, particularly the FOs who feel their jobs could potentially be threatened by this new line of imaginative resourcing of pilots for bmi. It also raises lots of questions about what sort of risks associated with training inexperienced FOs are acceptable for the airline and the unsuspecting paying public when the training is not in the main interest of the company because the trainee is not an employee nor planned to be.
It is quite a different relationship on the flight deck because of those unusual circumstances. bmi pilots don't understand why the company wishes to expose itself to this unnecessary risk. They don't see how it is meant to fit in with what is supposed to be a highly professional and comprehensively safety audited LHR based operation, that is part of the Star Alliance, and on the verge of becoming a Lufthansa major subsidiary.
That's about the main thrust of bmi mainline pilot sentiment at present...
Last edited by upandoffmyside; 2nd Feb 2009 at 20:12.