What you are failing to see is the fact that the Collective Agreements form part of our contract and our terms and conditions of employment. The two are inextricably linked.
Allow me to prove this to you beyond doubt
Nowhere in my contract does it state that I should report for a flight ex LHR 90 minutes before departure - agreed?
However it states in my WW agreement (Section 4.1 ) that I should do so - agreed?
If I persistently failed to report at the prescribed time I would be in trouble - agreed?
If I carried on reporting late I would be disciplined - agreed?
If I did not remedy this behaviour I would ultimately be sacked - agreed?
However nowhere in my contract does it state that I have to report at 90 mins prior to departure does it - agreed?
No it doesn't, it simply states that I am bound by the Collective Agreements which form part of my terms and conditions - it is those Collective Agreements that I would have broken and therefore that would be my breach of contract and that would be how BA would discipline me and ultimately sack me -
can you now see how inextricably linked they are?
And it is these Collective Agreements that BA have breached ie Crewing Levels etc And this is the reason why the changes made by BA are indeed contractual.
As for an Individual contract - then no you don't have one. You signed as an individual between yourself and BA, but your contract is the exact same as the many thousands of other Cabin Crew. In employment law an individual contract would be one agreed exclusively between an employer and employee with differing terms and conditions - a simple example would be the type of contract signed by a sports star, or a high-flyer in The City i.e. an
individually negotiated contract - these individual contracts more often than not are not allowed to be a part of Collective Agreements
And as for your quote above - I am unsure as to whether you realised it, but you just back up everything I have said!!
179.
Whether agreement intended to be a legally enforceable contract.
— (1) A collective agreement shall be conclusively presumed not to have been intended by the parties to be a legally enforceable contract unless the agreement—
(a)
is in writing, and
(Our Collective Agreements are in writing)
(b)
contains a provision which (however expressed) states that the parties intend that the agreement shall be a legally enforceable contract.
(It states in the Cabin Crew contract the fact that the CA's are part of the contract)
(2) A collective agreement which does satisfy those conditions shall be conclusively presumed to have been intended by the parties to be a legally enforceable contract.
(There you go....)
