The BA Scope Clause.

[airrage]

Finally some reasonably toned debate:

bral

"What is so special about 100 seats? "
Arbitrary # based on the maximum aircraft size BA Pilots would agree to concede. It goes back to what I said earlier. If BA want ex-BRAL to fly 747's then we want it to be on T&C's prevailing in BA for that fleet-size. And BA Pilots don't mind conceding grandfather rights(Capt's stay as Capt's)but as long as they stay on similar sized jets. Lets face it, this isn't an unreasonable BA Pilot request.

We could have said, no they are now bottom of the Seniority, we want all Pilot positions filled by bidding which would cost BA and put all ex-CFE/BRAL guys at the bottom of SH RHS. It is a COMPROMISE. Do you really think BA Pilots should agree for guys to stay as CAPT's and then after 6months allow them to say fly any type/size of aircraft ? In extremes this could mean guys become a 747 CAPT's in BA after being in months after some guys have waited 20 YEARS !!!!!!!!!!! Would BRAL Pilots not have demanded some sort of restrictions if put in a similar position ?

Scope is not about keeping ex-BRAL/CFE guys out of large BA aircraft but keeping BA from outsourcing all our jobs from outside BA. The aircraft size is the compromise of allowing people to be no worse off than when they where taken over by BA. Without Scope BALPA would be unable to Negotiate from strength in future for anything !! Because BA would just threaten to find a cheaper Option.

BARON

"Ever since we started mixing with BA, we have amazed by the totally self oriented attitudes, the scrabbling for small print and the rule book to avoid carrying out the job, the ridiculous and constant detail changes to everything, the refusal to compromise at all with management over anything, and most of all the polarisation which exists between all levels of BA staffing. "

Please try to believe that this has been brought about through decades of experience with working in BA and under their management. Things in smaller firms or family firms are based on give and take. Large UK PLc is about MANAGEMENT taking as much as possible from employees and giving it to shareholders, getting management share options and then changing firms with a successful CV. They do not even attempt to build a profitable firm believe it or not. They are concerned with BRAND management Only. Large firms means POLITICS, it is ineviatble when working with say 46unions in BA, all with different rights.

The only thing BA Pilots have to defend themselves is our Agreements, which BA ignore when possible. Being a stickler for Rule books is not because BA Pilots are different than other Pilots, it is because we have found what works and what doesn't over decades of experience. There is a lot history in every little Rule no matter how stupid it seems, unfortunately the historic reasons for those Rules often gets lost with the Pilots retiring but you can bet it is because they conceded something in the past in exchange for it.

Example 1
- LH flight crew have a different bus than CC on arrival back into LHR (2buses meet aircraft). BA CC get paid for 45minutes after arrival, Pilots 30minutes. BA won't concede an extra 15minutes Pay and because buses continually showed up late for crew. To improve bus punctaulity, after years of Pilot complaints, BA only acheived it when a financial penalty for being more than 35 minutes late was acheived. Pilots recently conceded the extra bus to fund Flight engineers early dismissal due FSS. The bus union have subsequently blocked such action. you get the idea.

Example 2
Why BA Pilots get paid a lunch allowance even though they don't leave the plane and they get a meal onboard. SH Pilots used to get to go for lunch(yes its true)between sectors at a fancy full service waited Mess. Pilots agreed to take lunch onboard but BA then stopped their alowance. A comproise resulted, so BA improved efficiency 200% and closed the expensive Mess and Pilots kept the lunch allowance.

A retiring BA CAPT once told me that there is even a reason why we have a PEN in our hotel rooms and not a PENCIL.

Although frustrating and often personally disadvantaging, the Rules are there and need to be protected in a company as large as BA. The only raise BA Pilots have acheived in decades is from trading off these inefficiencies otherwise our wages would have been stagnant. It is important not to concede these things for free because BALPA use them as bargaining tools.

Baron
"Harry, we don't like it at all - remember the only reason that BA's offer to buy us was accepted was because BA made it very clear that the franchise was not up for renewal."

BRAL/CFE, etc for was bought out/Taken Over by BA, the reason the takeover was successful(BA not extending franchise as Baron mentioned)is largely irrelevant. An 80% Premium to the current share price existing at that time had something to do with them agreeing I think.

Everyone, including BA Pilots need to come to terms with that we are working for a large PLC. It is not our job nor our within our ability, despite this sounding harsh, to make BA profitable. We are one cog in a machine of 1000's worldwide. Even our Pay is largely an irrelevance to BA making a profit. They can lose more money on not hedging fuel prices right overnight than they pay us in a month. This is just one example of 1000's to show that we have a much more irrelevant contribution to BA in terms of profitability than we like to think. We cannot continue to think of BA as our little company and if we work a little harder we can turn things around. It is exponentially beyond the realms of our control, all we can do is do our job to the best of our ability and hope the guy in the officie pushes the fuel buy order at the right time, etc, etc.