From another thread, an illustration of the twisting of words.
Originally Posted by Smell the Coffee
Pay - shocking; consider yourself lucky if you take home over £1100
That is quite different from what tomkins wrote:
Originally Posted by tomkins
Smell the coffee was not saying that £1100 was a monthly average ,he said you would be lucky to achieve this figure.....implying that some months you may earn less.
There was no implication from STC that you may earn less than £1,100.
While it may be the case, there is no evidence in Smell the Coffee's statement that "you would be lucky to achieve [£1100]"; what was clearly stated was that MF crew would be lucky to EARN MORE than £1100 after tax. A very different perspective.
My understanding is that BF did NOT offer market rate + 10% when compared to currently employed equivalent staff; it was market rate when compared to equivalent current UK hiring packages at other airlines.
And BA's package will include the performance bonus about which we haven't enough data to make a judgement.
That's why your example of Easyjet crew taking home a not unimpressive £1,800 net isn't a valid comparison (if indeed you can provide any tangible evidence new recruits get paid this); that would require a basic of £18,000ish not including flight pay etc. so at least £25,000 total gross per annum so it cannot be accurate, based on (anecdotal) evidence presented below:
I can only find info on Easyjet from the dreadful cabincrew.com site, which states new recruits start on £10,207 gross plus an estimated £5,103 as flight pay - so about £15,500 per annum gross plus Duty Free sales on top of that. After they are confirmed as permanent, they can expect another £2,000 per annum (and I think there's a similar step change for MF crew after a certain period of employment).
CabinCrew.com: EASYJET NEW RECRUITS WAGES
From that perspective it does seem BA's £17,000-£20,000 per annum is a little better than market rate, possibly not quite 10% more, but certainly not outside that ballpark.
I don't know what the MF monthly £1,100 net works out at gross, especially when you consider that flight pay is partially tax free. But over twelve months it amounts to £13,200 net, I estimate around £15,500 gross. If you then add in four quarterly payments of £500 as the performance related incentive component, and any additional Duty Free sales, then that gets us right to the £17,000-£20,000 per annum range, which is what is quoted in the BA MF ad below:
Cabin Crew Latest Jobs - Updated Daily with cabin Crew Jobs
Originally Posted by BA MF Cabin Crew Advert
Total Reward Package Cabin Crew: c£17,000 - £20,000pa includes basic salary, elapsed hourly pay and performance related incentive reward.
Of course as more longhaul and 747 routes move to MF then the flight pay proportion should increase, ensuring that across the year things do improve for MF. I would imagine the clientele on BA spends more on in flight Duty Free than an equivalent bmi or EasyJet passenger?
The only comparative data I could easily find was for Virgin (positions now filled), in the same link recruiting at a base of £11,564 gross p.a but that does not include flight pay or performance bonus; what it does do is illustrate that BA are not wildly out of kilter with prevailing alternative employers. I have no doubt that other airlines recruiting in the UK (eg Emirates/ flybe /EasyJet) pay less well than Virgin, and have other drawbacks not encountered by those working for BA (eg less longhaul flight pay component, less duty free commission, less attractive routes).
Market Rate plus 10% would have been based on the levels of remuneration for new roles available in the market at the time the offer was made (I believe this was in mid/late 2009).
Inflation will have eroded this already (by about 5%, or £800/year) in real terms. I do think that BA needs to be more transparent about the levels of likely performance bonus for MF crew as this does seem to be where the 10% differentiation is expected to come from.
I think it is clear BA needs to ensure its MF crew are remunerated at a level which slightly exceeds market rate. The performance related component and the increased proportion of longhaul and new routes may well balance this out across the year. It is simply too early to tell.
BA Cabin Crew Managers are now a lot closer to those they manage and valid concerns about pay will be directly referred to senior management and that changes can be made when appropriate, without the involvement of a meddling Union Branch.
Let's hope MF does get some sort of collective representation soon from a non-dysfunctional collective bargaining entity, perhaps Unite itself or possibly PCCC (though I don't see any evidence yet that PCCC is capable of performing such a role). Without wishing to stray OT, there is an open market for collective representation and the BASSA leadership does not hold a monopoly on such roles!
Having some sort of business-minded collective representation is important in lower paid, cyclical industries and especially where employees are positioned in multiple locations.
It is clear that the passenger feedback for MF is broadly positive, and the savings made elsewhere in the company and within the legacy fleet (despite the largely neutralising effect of the costs of the strike) are slowly returning BA back to modest profitability, and that bodes well for the performance component of the package. Long may that continue.
P.S. What does I.A.T.U. stand for? Possibly
I Am Totally Unhinged?
