Another update from CC89:
At 09:35hrs on Friday 3rd December 2010, the AMICUS Cabin Crew Committee received (from Unite), a copy of a pre-ballot letter dated 30th November 2010 from the Unite national officers to British Airways. With it came a copy of the letter from the Unite JGS's to all cabin crew members of Unite (AMICUS and Bassa) dated 2nd December 2010.
We had no knowledge of these letters of their content prior to this.
Contained within these letters are the chosen items of our dispute. There are 4 of them.
1. The immediate restoration of staff travel concessions, in full, to the crew from whom they were taken by BA.
2. Binding arbitration, through ACAS, of all cabin crew disciplinary cases related to the original dispute.
3. The restoration of all earnings docked from crew who were genuinely off sick during strike dates.
4. Full and proper discussion of the trade union facilities agreement at the company with the immediate removal of all threats and sanctions made by BA in relation to this.
It cannot go without saying that the AMICUS Committee have had no say in these items. We are part of the negotiating/strike committee and yet we have not even been consulted about our own items for dispute upon which you shall now be balloted.
However, these 4 items are same as those contained within the Bassa article dated 12th November 2010 "Duncan's Blog" and with which the AMICUS committee disagreed. We responded in detail to that position in our article dated 16th November 2010, and again in our article on 17th November 2010 (on the . FRONT PAGE HOME PAGE website). We made it very clear that these 4 points were flimsy and dangerous, and by no means far reaching enough considering the levels of imposition to which we have already subjected, and the continuing breach of our existing agreements.
We also made it very clear in our articles that to our knowledge, these 4 items were indeed the final Bassa position despite protestations from them and others to the contrary. As you will now see, these 4 items were not simply the starting position we had been assured of. We were absolutely right from the start - because they are now the 4 points upon which our entire dispute now hinges. They define it. They are it.
On 29th November 2010, we wrote to you again when we had heard the intention to ballot had been announced. We can only assume this too has been ignored. We said:
"we are not prepared to accept any offer to settle this dispute on the basis that British Airways ONLY agree to the "four no cost items". The current agreement in any guise is unacceptable to us and we believe to the community as a whole.
Why, you might ask? Because it is built on quick sand and has no guarantees for our future. The offer does not adequately deal with the reasons why the dispute arose in the first place. To add insult to injury, it also seeks to restrict and deprive you of your statutory rights to litigation against an increasingly unreasonable employer.
We do however believe that the four items form a good basis for discussions to commence with the involvement of the reps and will clear the decks of all the diversionary nonsense that British Airways has chosen to introduce into the dispute.
So what does solving just these 4 items mean?
As it stands, should Willie Walsh decide upon a magnanimous gesture to settle this dispute on his way out of the door in January 2011, he could do so just by addressing these 4 points. He could simply agree to these relatively no cost items now DEFINING our dispute. We will have foregone all the other aspects that have affected each and every one of us for the last 12 months and that will continue to impact upon our careers, earnings and job security from now onwards. It means that all the toxic elements of the latest deal which ultimately benefit the company will remain in place, including the litigation appendix. In short, all matters of litigation against BA are surrendered, including our appeal to the Supreme Court on the contractual issues of our flying agreement - and imposition - the original basis of our dispute and one which is gaining momentum. By implication this means we accept breach of our agreements - and this will continue. And it means serious restriction and undermining of your individual and collective legal rights.
Surely, this cannot be what you want?
We stand by our earlier position. With the company sustaining the cost of weather disruption, ash clouds, the cost of industrial action and a series of punitive fines for their conduct - and yet still making an operating profit, in our view, it is now our `fight for survival' that is at stake. In order to restore the relationship and for us all to recognise the merit of BA's intent to move forwards, as we understand it, the issues that they now need to resolve are very simple:
(i) return to the collectively agreed crewing levels (BA has spent far more on this dispute than removing crew was ever going to save);
(ii) acknowledgement that collective agreements will not be broken by BA and will only be varied by further negotiation and collective agreement;
(iii) reinstatement of all lost staff travel benefits to strikers (including accrued seniority/status tickets etc);
(iv) no victimisation (including full reinstatement of all those dismissed, and restoration to their former positions of all those otherwise penalised in this dispute - (the foregoing are now identified in the current offer documentation as "relevant employees" and "processed employees");
(v) in view of how the dispute came about and how negotiations since have been conducted, a recognition that AMICUS/Bassa are the elected representatives of the cabin crew with whom all future negotiations will be conducted (save where existing collective agreements or AMICUS/Bassa otherwise expressly agree in advance). This naturally includes recognition of our existing facilities agreement.
In addition to these major items of our dispute, there are a number of other issues that would need to be satisfactorily addressed within any offer from British Airways in order to bring peace to the cabin crew community.
These were outlined in the recent Bassa article dated 1st December 2010:
1. Pay offers are normally across the whole company; we want confirmation that the increase for cabin crew will not be LESS than in any other area - so far this has been refused.
2. Mixed fleet is here, it will grow, routes will transfer into it - this is your working life-blood. NO routes = NO work. There has to be an agreement on how this would happen. British Airways want to move routes to mixed fleet purely based on their "commercial needs". No consideration of the type of work being moved or its impact on current crew (length of trips, type of trips, days off, earnings) would be factored into this. These things must be taken into consideration; so far this has been refused.
3. Top up payment - we asked all along this to be classed as "lifetime" and/or "contractual", again thus far this has been refused.
4. Proposed changes to the employment policy must not simply be to allow British Airways to introduce changes that will be worse for you and make it easier for people to be sacked, a harsher sickness policy, a reduction to only one appeal (currently two) if subject to a disciplinary. These will only be the tip of the iceberg; there is also a whole raft of other proposed changes that could adversely affect you. No trade union should accept this.
5. Redeployment agreement - British Airways is trying to remove this cornerstone of security; if your area is closed or has no work, your historic pay protections and right to redeploy on protected conditions must be maintained.
You will now have received your personal letter regarding the upcoming ballot. As the membership behind this union - your voice now has to carry. Make the sound. This is your dispute; these need to be your items. In our opinion, although subject to the `majority' view - the current items are simply not enough.