Fume #4495
Firstly, I do love your rants against WW. Not sure what he's ever done to you personally, but I can almost imagine you chucking darts at a photo of his head or something.
However, you've still never come back with any names of who you would like to nominate as his replacement, and why you think any such person would be more sympathetic to your position than is Walsh. There are two other airlines, based close to BA, both of which have announced compulsory redundancies recently. So far WW has avoided this. One of the two, Aer Lingus, proposes cutting its entire workforce by 25%. The equivalent for BA would be about 10,000 jobs, I believe. There is quite a distance between BA's proposals and Aer Lingus' actual actions. So I hope you'll understand why those of us non-resident in the BA bubble find it hard to appreciate the somewhat personal nature of the dispute as some BA staff appear to view it. I have yet to be convinced by anyone that WW is not your least bad option. I do accept there are no good options in current circumstances.
Turning to your specific comments on WW and his time at Aer Lingus. He left Aer Lingus because the Irish government, then the 100% shareholder, would not support the kind of changes he now wants to make at BA. He wanted to cut costs, increase productivity and then expand the fleet. His actions at BA are entirely consistent with his Aer Lingus proposals. Aer Lingus finds itself on the verge of insolvency now simply because its post-WW management has been as unsuccessful as WW in getting the Irish government (now a 25% shareholder) to stand up to its Union friends. You can view this as Union success if you want but, ultimately, if it's unaffordable it has but one consequence: redundancy. We've reached the point in Ireland now where the government quite literally has no money to buy off the Unions.
Finally, just a couple of points on imposition. Aer Lingus is imposing pay cuts, working practices changes, compulsory redundancy: the works basically. You may or may not be aware that the General Secretary of the ICTU (Irish equivalent of the TUC) sits on the Board of Aer Lingus as a government appointee. He has endorsed the changes being imposed by Mueller. You may also not be aware that IALPA has said that it will not strike, even if it cannot reach an agreement with Aer Lingus, a somewhat different position to your Union with BA, I think.
You may also not be aware that in Wednesday's Irish Budget, the government IMPOSED a pay cut on every public sector worker in the country, ranging from 6% for those earning under €30,000 up to 15% for the highest paid. Government ministers are taking a 20% cut. That is on top of a 3% pension levy imposed earlier in the year in the public sector, essentially requiring larger contributions for the same pension entitlement. In the Budget, pension entitlements were cut, so it's actually a 3% levy for a lower entitlement.
I hope the above gives you an insight into the challenges facing large numbers of people outside the BA bubble, many of whom work (though not for much longer) in competing airlines. Viewed from the outside, BA's proposals look remarkable benign in comparison with the sacrifices being requested of, or indeed imposed on, others.