BA CC industrial relations (current airline staff only)

[Wirbelsturm]

Ops Room Junkie,

Succinctly put!

Sadly there is a minority, I state it again, a minority of BASSA crew who feel that they only 'ARE' British Airways as they are the ones providing the service on board. They fail to take into account the army of people working behind the scenes in a bewildering array of positions that get the customer from their first Internet click into the seat where they can 'serve' the product.

I am a big supporter of our Cabin Crew and a review of my previous posts will support this. They provide, on the whole, a great service. Unfortunately they are let down, once again, by the minority who provoke reaction by their interaction or, more precisely, lack of it.

The Company is slowly waking up. BASSA, for all their spin and back slapping have achieved absoloutly nothing apart from managing to get their negotiating back after demanding 'No Negotiation' at one of their whipping meetings. (Yes it's still on You Tube). They have lost their members money, benefits and credibility, nothing more. The original reason for action still stands and will continue to stand. As BASSA are still smarting about this they trot out the usual rhetoric of 'you're next' and 'VCC's will find they haven't got a job to go back to' without realising that the way the company deals with its employees hasn't changed at all. It's just that those employee groups have always dealt sensibly with the company.

After the failure of the first IA and the subsequent apathy applied by the customers to the subsequent British Airways has, finally, loosened the strangle hold that has plagued this company for years. I for one welcome that open armed. I believe all employee groups should be well represented, I just feel that BASSA has never, ever, adequately represented all of its members by pursuing action that preserved the terms of the select few.

For the BASSA supporters I ask only this, what have BASSA achieved over the past two years? What quantifiable, concrete results have BASSA gained? Simply none. The original dispute was about imposition, imposition that was applied a long time after BASSA failed dismally to represent ALL of its members, a long time after ALL the other departments had reached a sensible, pragmatic, adult decision. Why is that Union busting? Why should a FTSE 100 company have to deal with an inadequate branch which can't get itself organised and cannot comprehend the business it resides in?

Unite are now coming to terms with Public sector cuts that we, in the Private sector, have had to live with for the past few years and those in the Civil Service (I was one) are finding it very painful and quite shocking. Unite don't have time for a Branch which hasn't been asked to reduce numbers outside of VR, which hasn't been asked to take a pay cut, which hasn't been asked to do anything except change, slightly, their working pattern. Imposition, not New Fleet/Columbus, impostion is what this is about. BASSA were offered the ability to change/direct/influence New Fleet, they declined, withdrew the facilities agreement and ran off to a corner shouting No Negotiation whilts printing Willie Walsh underpants. How drole.

Where, in all of that, has BASSA won anything?

Nowhere.