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Old 23rd Feb 2011, 14:20
  #563 (permalink)  
VintageKrug
 
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DH has already clearly stated that he has no intention of actually calling a strike, rather using ballots to serially frustrate the airline, and that they are actually rather hoping BA challenges every aspect in the courts as this will allow them to portray themselves as victims of big, bad capitalists.

Holley: “This is a different phase of the dispute that we are now in, it’s no longer about rushing into strike dates; it is all about sending a message..….You no longer need actual strikes to pressure the company - ballots can have the same effect, since they carry the threat of strikes. It would now appear that a simple, well-placed cross on the ballot paper removes some of the need to actually lose money and stand on picket lines.”
It should also be remembered that BA has not:

1. Made any of its cabin crew compulsorily redundant throughout this dispute

2. Resorted to change of contract, which can be imposed with three months’ notice;

3. Invoked dismissal for Some Other Significant Reason (SOSR)

All of which are options BA could pursue at this stage, with most serious repercussions for vary many hard working, if poorly informed, cabin crew.

BASSA has continually misrepresented to its workforce that BA is potentially offering the Mixed Fleet contract to existing crew; this is absolutely not the case: this is the offer which has in the past been made available to those cabin crew not in the union, including a 2.9% pay rise this year, 3% in 2012 and assurances that current T&Cs will remain:

http://www.uniteba.com/ESW/Files/151...llectivev6.doc

BASSA has a history of causing a fuss over silly issues, such as the infamous Hot TowelGate:

LGW/LHR - 29/01/09 Hot Towels in WT+

I had a good deal of sympathy for Cabin Crew when this negotiation first kicked off; it’s important in cyclical lower paid industries such as aviation that employees have effective representation; that representation should be pragmatic and business-minded. After all the Union Branch cannot exist without the employer, while the reverse is not true.

And most large firms need a single entity with which it can negotiate; I am not certain if that single entity may no longer be relevant now we have significantly better communication methods and it may well be that BA could be a model for a new way of conducting industrial relations, after all many large multinational firms exist without a significantly unionised workforce, with the workforce incentivised to excel and go the extra mile to do their part to deliver profits with financial incentives if those targets are achieved, rather than the rather negative “lowest common denominator” approach espoused by some Unions of the 1970s persuasion.

There cannot be any truth in the allegation of “union-busting” as BA continues to have positive engagement with its other Unions, even including Unite, most recently having come to agreement on the Pensions Deficit, averted a Ground Crew strike, not to mention the Settlement Unite agreed with Willie Walsh on this very dispute, then reneged on, last year.

My regular experience as a passenger is that most BA crew are superb; they go the extra miles (one anecdote: I left my watch in the lounge after boarding the aircraft, and he scooted off to retrieve it for me as I was not permitted to re-enter the terminal myself) and for the generally good humour and peculiarly British mix of informality and professionalism which is not matched by many other international airlines out there.

Having said that, it is clear to me that the enormous amount of stress BASSA has inflicted on its membership and non-members with the vitriol and personalised way it has run this dispute is affecting morale, and I have noticed a significant upturn in the number of grumpy crew in my longhaul flights over the past few months (less so on shorthaul, for some reason).

However, I am equally certain that the ability to exhibit those traits is not directly correlated to the amount of money paid, nor to the length of service, nor membership or non-membership of a Union.

On that qualified basis, I now have very little sympathy for cabin crew who remain within BASSA (they can still leave BASSA and re-join TU membership with Unite directly if they prefer); BASSA is plainly a dysfunctional organisation, led largely by people who no longer work for BA, selfishly motivated to protect only their own interests and not that of the wider membership, intent on anarchic anti-capitalist style revenge on British Airways.

Having failed in its industrial action it is now hoping to tie up BA in the courts for decades as it’s only remaining weapon, yet legal engagement is a double edge sword, and as history has proven, BA has a repeatedly runs rings around the Unite legal team, and with BA’s HR dept. now part of the Legal Dept. there should be little opportunity for BASSA to attack.

Symptomatic of its bankrupt arguments, BASSA has a history of deploying frankly abhorrent Nazi imagery to ram its perverse message home:

http://daylife.sky.com/imageserve/0d...ndabg/610x.jpg

And again a BASSA propaganda sheet littered with references paralleling this "struggle" to the Holocaust:

http://bassa.co.uk/bassa/downloads/N...DFFile-785.pdf

They also have a penchant for using children to make their point, which is deeply unpleasant, reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s “Human Shield”:

www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/94c16cff08.jpg

BASSA is impotent to affect BA’s operations, and those heading off for weddings, honeymoon and funerals as well as businesspeople know that BA will better its previous capacity to deliver a normal operation during a “strike” if indeed there is a next time, by operating all but a handful of exLHR shorthaul flights.

Whatever your thoughts on Unions are, they are democratic organisations. It is time the majority of BASSA membership asserted their voice, demanded access to accounts, demanded access to membership records, demanded an explanation of the reasons why no elections for BASSA officials have taken place for some considerable time, and were made aware of how they can extricate themselves, and the company that pays their wages (and their ex-colleagues’ pensions) from this mess into which their Union Branch has led them. BA is not going to relent, and continued dispute is harming cabin crew both professionally and personally, as well as damaging the reputation of Unionism in general.

Enough is enough.

--------

I should make it entirely clear that I (and anyone connected with me) do not, nor ever have had, any professional connection with any aspect of the travel industry, or (for the avoidance of any doubt any entity similar to the Burke Group) and what I set out here is my personal understanding from a close reading of the available public sources, and occasional discussions with BA employees in my capacity as a regular passenger.

I am more than more than happy to have any of the statements I have made critically challenged; please do challenge my posts, but don’t criticise me personally, as it does nothing to add to the debate!

Last edited by VintageKrug; 27th Feb 2011 at 08:35.
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