Colonel White
While some may disagree with my view of the next day or so and in a perfect world the negotiated proposal would be balloted without a meeting on Thursday. But we are where we are and thats just how it is, no amount of hard line stance from posters is going to change that. Whether the branch constitution changes in the future only time will tell.
If the proposal is recommended by the branch committee, and it looks like it will, then we have nothing to worry about it will be put to a full postal ballot foregoing the current mandate.
I don't believe the sacked should be reinstated without due investigation, however the investigation should be concluded as quickly as possible. The reason being that the tribunals take time and it is the view of many crew the
punishment didn't justify the crime in many cases and to insist these going to employment tribunal would likely spoil what sounds like a settlement. True or not, none of us really know the whole truth.
Saying these cases should be at the sole discretion of employment tribunals is a kin to the hardline stance that brought us to where we are now. Keeping the investigations in house or at ACAS reduces the costs on both sides and will enable both sides to move on and rebuild. In my book thats a good thing.
As for variable pay, I 'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough, but I was talking about none meal allowance variable pay which forms part of the current crew's pay, which crew rely on to form part of their monthly take home pay. I believe it is the company's problem as that is the way crew are paid through the agreements in place. To cut or reduce this will cause hardship as contrary to what the daily mail would have you believe many don't crew take home huge amounts of money each month.
As for crew making profit on meal allowances, yes some crew do and rightly or wrongly it's the way crew choose to spend meal allowances.
As for companies getting the union they deserve, IFCE may well have had a management unwilling to take on the unions in the past, however massive step change doesn't work either (as we've seen) playing hard ball just results in unions and their membership digging their heals in and resisting step change.
It's a far better management style to bring the unionised workforce with you than push change through at any cost.
The next day or so will see what has been achieved how we aim to move forward. As for the unions being surprised at IFCE being less acquiescent isn't as true as some would like to think. The union got the measure of this dispute early on and it was published on many occasions this wasn't going to be a quick dispute and finding a settlement that was acceptable on both sides was going to be a long haul.
To KW's credit it seems he's achieved more in 3 months than WW achieved in 15 months or so.