MissM, I agree that New Fleet is a worry, but first of all BA and the union can ensure that either they make the savings another way - or New Fleet is introduced and why not have some sort of AGREEMENT that routes will be fairly distributed and we will not be starved of work. I know alot of crew do not trust management, but you can't speculate or strike based on speculation.
Bassa rejected New Fleet out of hand, had a few months to talk about alternatives, spent a lot of that time whinging about ''fat cats'' and why we had to make the most savings, why pilots are paid £100m a year, why changes were permenent, started mantra of ''TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS TO TEMPORARY PROBLEMS'' etc etc... then BA offered a few proposals to protect current fleets Travel Payment (yes I hear wht you mean about them taking it, hence why someone earlier suggested including this in our basic!) and also a ''matrix of routes'' was suggested to ensure an even distrubution. Then BA still realised crew didn't like it so offered to recruit new recruits and promote existing and new crew on a new contract but on EF and WW, with just a few amendments to the agreements. Sure, some of the agreements I did not like, but some were more than reasonable and negotiable. BASSA just rejected it and counted around 2000 peoples hands, no to further negotiations.
BA rejected BASSAs proposal around this time, which is another reason why BASSA didn't want to play anymore. Why? BASSA ''claimed'' it saved £170 million, it was actually calculated to be £52m by PWC and BA! Why some crew still think BASSA are whiter than white it baffles me!! Thmpre proposal let's face it only had a few savings in, which hardly made any changes so you could tell it wouldn't save enough. Alot of the savings were temporary.
Then there was a few more rants from BASSA, BASSA walked out of meetings etc... didn't want to listen to presentation, BA was bleeding cash so needed to put an IMMEDIATE plug on it, so to speak, hence the ''imposition''. Which BA believed was noncontractual. WW stated he would consider alternatives to NF, Unite did not want to know, threw toys out of the pram and balloted to destroy the airli... I mean strike! The strike would have been illegal so now they are intending to ballot again.... Time for a reality check.
I agree, we have to be careful as to what is implemented but we have to get rid of this aversion to change so many people have. We are in a global recession, the company is losing around £1m A DAY, other airlines are finding it hard, some are going bust and there are many people willing to do the job on New Fleet, which probably would be better than some of the T&Cs they used to work on anyway. So many crew hate change, but air travel has changed and changed a long time ago, and continues to do so, our T&Cs have not, so that's why BA are after them big time. I agree we should protect our pay as much as possible etc.. but BA has said they are not after our pay, they want us to work harder and introduce a new contract for future crew... is it a reason to strike for especially in these times. Also, consider this; would you rather be out of a job, on the dole, or on New Fleet?? If you applied to any other airline would it be better than New Fleet??
I know alot of what I have stated has been stated many times on this thread but it seems to be forgotten by many people.