Thankyou Timothy.
Jetset Lady,
You are, and I mean this in all sincerity, apart from the BASSA militants, the only person that appears to hold the Professional Cabin Crew Council in disdain.
To date we have been entirely self-funded and have prospered and grown due to the generosity and kindness of well-wishers. Our fantastic new website (
www.mypccc.co.uk) was provided free of charge courtesy of another BA employee who does web design. Our business cards and logo were designed and emailed to us from a well-wishing customer. We now have an Industrial Relations Expert offering us free advice. We have realms of emails of support from all over the globe from BA employees, BA customers, and even other airline staff. We have had gold card holders and others offering us donations (which we have politely declined). The support for what we are trying to do has been absolutely tremendous. I am therefore curious as to why someone who clearly doesn't support BASSA should feel the need to put us down in the way you do?
JetsetLady with all due respect, you do not work at LHR and you cannot possibly understand the strength of hatred from the BASSA militants. Nor do you seem to understand the lengths they will go to. The LGW members on our committee could not believe that NO-ONE at LHR wore the Backing BA lanyards - until we introduced them during the strikes. It seems at LGW people have been wearing them without problem. People would have been struck down at LHR for wearing them, prior to this.
Additionally, a crew member at LHR had their car marked with an S in the car park. A crew member on one of my flights during the strike was shouted "Scab" at in the car park. Hate mail has been put in mail drops. 50+ suspensions is not for nothing.
Why should we open ourselves up to this level of abuse, until we absolutely have to? We are, like you, cabin crew who do not support what Unite are doing. We recognise, as indeed you do, that there is a far better way of doing business - and we intend to try and find a path to do that. We are also trying to stem the damage that Unite have done. To date, we have informed the majority of crew that were unaware about the share scheme, bonus option and free ticket offer last year. We posted publicly that we would be working during the strike, and we went to work on the first day, in full uniform to the crew car parks at LHR and LGW. We then emailed everyone and told them where the pickets were, and that it was perfectly safe. We have received emails of thanks from our members saying what a support it was to know that we had gone in first. They felt better going to work and I like to think in some small way, we gave people the courage to cross the picket line.
We are now wearing the Backing BA lanyards, and the tide is slowly turning at LHR - the militants are less inclined to start strutting their stuff in the briefing rooms. Perhaps, most important of all for our community, we have a forum on our website where cabin crew can talk
freely about how they would like this to end, and how they don't agree with BASSA.
It may not seem like much to you, but believe me, by LHR standards it is huge inroads into the BASSA machine. And we intend to keep plugging away. After all, what have we got to lose? So why not join us, instead of putting us down. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Doing nothing is not an option. We may not succeed, but at least we will have given it our best shot.