Firstly, i am a member of the FAAA and therefore support them, at least so far as the concept of union membership goes. I understand your point
VB Girl in regards to many crew not being members of FAAA and enjoying the spoils but are they really? What spoils exactly do they enjoy? As has been mentioned, the union in it's 'conservativeness' doesn't impose fines when the company breaches the conditions of our EBA because you say they want the company to remain viable.
The union is very conservative when it comes to the negotiation process and when dealing with breaches of the EBA on behalf of its members to ensure they do not affect company profitability in a detrimental manner. They do not want the company fined $30,000 for every breach of the EBA or have the company lose paying passengers as a result of a strike. They want the company to succeed financially as this will ensure that all of our jobs are protected
However, if fines are never imposed then what's the point? No wonder the company walks all over the FAAA, the FAAA allows it to, the FAAA has never taken a hardline approach. How about some tough love? The company is quite happy to milk all it can out of us! This is why crew decide not to join, they see no action, no real consequences for breaches. If a $30,000 fine here and there is going to push the company over the edge then our jobs are in a pretty precarious position anyway. And fear of putting the company in the red? Why is the FAAA so concerned with such folly when the company isn't? Branson himself at the launch of VAustralia made the comment (not verbatim) to the media whilst onboard the inaugural flight from LA "hey we know there's a recession but we're gonna do it anyway! hahaha" So just to clarify, the FAAA is more concerned about the company making a quid than it's quintessential face and millionaire brand-name owner? The FAAA should be working as hard as it can for it's members, regardless of the number it has. It shouldn't matter whether there is 1 or 1500 members, if but one person is paying a fee for a service (representation), then they should receive the service. To argue that the FAAA can't do much because it doesn't have enough members makes me wonder what my fees are paying for? And this is exactly the reason why people pull out! For all their expertise, surely the FAAA should have considered the fact that the people don't join because they hear the same old story..."not enough people are members so we can't do much for you...", "we're only as good as the number of members we have and we don't have many" etc. No wonder people don't join, they feel that there is no point, that their money will be a waste because nobody else is joining. The FAAA, in an effort to rally support, has shot themself in the foot. They promoted membership on the basis that it was needed because hardly anyone was a member...how about promoting membership by advertising what they will do for us? Put your best foot forward, focus on the positive. People want to see results, see what their membership represents, they want action!!! They don't want to know they are signing up to a lacklustre and ineffectual group that hardly anyone aspires to be a member of and that Virginblue doesn't rate (or fear)! The fact that the senior management of the FAAA has not figured this out is beyond me. It makes me wonder whether they use lack of membership as an excuse for poor results...I support a number of charities on a monthly basis and at the end of every financial year i get a summary of where/how my donations were spent, why don't i get that from the FAAA?
That said, at the end of the day - and i do hope
VB Management, who don't usually post on PPRUNE...ten points for making me laugh!...are also reading this - if the current (expired) EBA is successfully cancelled and the company chooses to put in place what was so strongly rejected by 77% of the cabin crew - with or without the cash payments - then they too need some advice from specialists' outside of the company. If 77% of your frontline staff are unhappy, how's that going to be for business? Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the correct answer but, somehow management is still crying poor despite the fact that we actually played a large part in Virginblue making a $30million profit. Pity Management decided to go ahead with VAustralia...and thus put the
business not
VB mind you, in the red by a cool $160million. Why should we suffer the consequences? We've been working our butts off to do well for our guests and provide them with a service they want to come back for. They tell us its to keep our jobs...bull...its to keep VAustralia going. We were doing just fine. And lets not forget, its not just crew that are being asked to take a hit for VA, its also ground crew and any other poor minion at the bottom rung. You have bled us dry boys, find the funds somewhere else, 77% have said as much!
