Lessons from history
After lurking on this thread and the other one from the beginning, here’s my two-pennyworth, based on 35 years in BA, most of it with a BALPA position and part of the time with a management hat, though nearly all on the technical side.
BA’s CC always seemed to be the worst managed bit of the airline, and what’s happening now looks like the last act in a drama that started 50 years ago. Back in the 60s and 70s CC had a lot of ex-liner stewards in senior positions and the advent of the 747 provided the opportunity to push for increased status: “there are now so many cabin crew needed they have to have a full-time manager on board”. The position of Cabin Service DIRECTOR was created with this in mind, analogous to the Cruise Director on a large liner who is responsible for all the in-board entertainment, catering, entertainment etc. for thousands of people for weeks at a time. Such a person might even have an “office” under the stairs, but certainly wouldn't personally serve meals! CC management even tried to get this position of “Cabin Captain” recognised as second-in-command of the aircraft. Needless to say this created a reaction from flight ops and BALPA. It was firmly rebuffed but the trend was started whereby CC unions and management colluded to overstate the role of CC especially CSDs.
Many CC managers also seemed to love to micro-manage everyone below them, so like scheduling systems which give most crew little control over their own lives. The sickness rate in CC is well known to be grossly inflated by “social sickness”, which is simply individual CC taking back control of when they work and more importantly when they don’t. This causes instability and inflates the headcount with standbys, When standby is incorporated in lines of rostered flying, if the standby is used it can cause further instability by knocking out later trips. So you need more standby crew….
That same system was used for pilots in the 60s and early 70s, and the sickness rate improvement and overall satisfaction when a bidding system was introduced was remarkable. When CC strikes were called in the past and massive disruption resulted, it was nearly all due to “sickness” not striking. During one such period of unrest I made this point to a senior CC manager, who just said most CC weren’t “mature enough” to be trusted with a preferential bidding system. Of course the senior union reps and their supporters were happy with the existing system too, as they found ways to make things satisfactory for themselves, and over the years the CSD position in particular accrued significant benefits way above the reality of the responsibility involved.
Adding to this internal empire-building conspiracy between management and union reps was of course the increasing emphasis on the central importance of CC as the employees with the maximum exposure to passengers. While true up to a point, for some, in their own minds, it meant that they above all others ARE the airline. The most militant CC seem to be people who have largely been brought up in that culture of over-inflated self-esteem.
Meanwhile, newer generations of CC recruits have different ideas about what their role can and should be in the cut-throat economics of the 21st century. But they have been treated like badly-brought up children, often praised but given no responsibility. Confused by a continuous stream of half-truths from their “leaders” who mostly have a different agenda entirely, they don’t know what to think and so don’t even vote in potentially career-changing ballots.
They are not helped by the fact that many of the more militant ones seem not to be even fully devoted to the career they profess to be defending. I would question the right of a 50% worker’s vote to strike carrying equal weight with that of a full-time worker – after all they have a 50% less chance of being required to follow through by refusing to report on a strike day, and have less to lose than a full-timer if things go wrong (as they have in the current situation). As for using deliberate disruption of long-planned and hard earned trips of passengers as a weapon to re-institute the ability to get to the head of the queue while commuting to a part-time job from another continent using a non-contractual “perk” – words fail me!
The end result seems to be that BA has finally determined to get a grasp on the nettle that it needs to uproot. It grew largely a result of its own actions many years ago. It cannot afford to, and will not let it re-root. Hopefully a new and less inward-looking CC management team can find more truly representative union people to deal with in future. For BASSA, it looks like the game is over.