As a ground worker, and a member of Unite, said to me the other day -
"every other work group in BA have made savings and changed their working practices, except cabin crew! Why do they think they are so special?"
That from a ground worker!!
Sporran, we don't think we are special! In fact, BA have made it abundantly clear that we don't matter at all anymore and thats ok! (Nothing like knowing where you stand!). Historically a lot of money has been invested in persuading the crew through training that they are important as they are the eyes and ears of our customers and it takes a while to change such a heavily re-inforced concept. Many of my colleagues feel they are the guardians of the customer experience and its hard to let go of that. A couple more years of apologising should get us there though!
We just want to ensure that this is a level playing field and that IFCE are not being treated unfairly through some misguided attempt to break the unionisation and degrade our jobs. I suppose a mistrust of our management team is the main problem here which is why crew would like to see some sort of guarantee written into any agreement. It would be soul destroying to give up large tracts of current agreements only to have BA turn a 12% operating profit 2 years down the line at our expense. (We wish!) That being said, striking is not the way to achieve this.
Litebulbs
I still can't see why BA did not reduce the service on board and then reduce headcount.
Exactly so, why didn't they? On Eurofleet they did and actually, since the customer offering has been so reduced, we can manage quite well with the new crewing levels. Long-haul service is still the same as far as I know which either implies BA thought there was a lot of slack or couldn't see a way to further reduce the offering and yet remain competitive. I haven't travelled as SLF for some time so can't comment either way.
And a 50% reduction in the Club chocolates
Bit more than 50% I fear. 100% in some cases. And as for those strange skinny blue squares.....! Bring back Lily O'Briens I say. Strange stuff appearing in the name of costcutting. It seems that the stewards trousers have had their belt loops reduced from 5 to 3! How much could that have saved I wonder?
BA Cabin crew and these thoughts are my own.