All this talk of going on strike just serves to show what little imagination people have. A united front on a substantive period of 'work to rule' will have just as much of an impact on the company finances (and hence shareholder pressure to act) as a couple of days of strike, and none of the
PR disaster that a strike would be. I guarantee the public have no sympathy for us at all.
Work to rule is fairly straightforward;
Check in no earlier than required.
Conduct a full and comprehensive brief.
Insist the CC conduct their pre-flight security & turnaround checks in full accordance with their manuals & numerous NOTACs/notices (for their own protection from disciplinary sanctions, naturally).
Log every defect found in the tech log on each and every sector (with or without engineering support).
Use the APU for cabin conditioning.
Push back only once the CC are seated & fly at 210kts to mimimise the risk of injury to pax & crew from CAT.
Refuse any duty/extension which can be refused.
Call in sick on every occassion you feel ill or tired to ensure flight safety.
Refuse to eat unsatisfactory crew food and purchase a suitable replacement with the company credit card.
Insist on proper meal breaks for the crew.
Exercise commander's discretion to increase minima.
Offload every passenger who infringes the Flybe code of conduct.
Log a formal notice of complaint with the management over each and every unresolved issue encountered during the working day and every lack of response to journey log comments.
You will only be doing what the company has demanded of you as a professional aviator, and all that has changed is you have withdrawn your right to exercise discretion in weighing up the commercial considerations versus safety.
We can do this for as long as it takes, unlike a strike, and there is little opportunity for the company to criticise as we are only doing our job to the highest standard. No real
PR opportunity for them, and plenty of scope for us to play the safety card. It will play havoc with the schedule, brass off our passengers very quickly, cost money and put real pressure on the decision makers.
Time for hard ball gentlemen.