B.A.d feeling allround
From a share trading bulletin board:
Terminal 4 at Heathrow is the place of work for more than 900 BA staff who take care of departing and arriving passengers. They work for the "Customer Services Unit" and many are employed on a part-time basis. Duties include manning check-in desks, where they have assumed the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that travel documents are in order (now that Home Office staff are no longer available) and where they are exposed to frequent abuse as a consequence of the stress caused by delays and overcrowding, arguments over seat allocation and baggage allowances (and just how do you go about explaining to a Club or First passenger that he or she has been bumped because the over-booking policy has come unstuck?). These people (whose work is considerably more demanding than that of cabin staff but are paid less)have recently been forced to accept a 1% salary increase.
Their union - the T&GWU - fails generally to properly represent the interest of the Customer Service Unit employees. Simply, this group of staff is not as high-profile as cabin crew or, naturally, as the pilots. However the union has recently been prevailed upon to obtain the opinion of a major law firm about BA's plans to curtail the rights of their employees. The plan is to reduce the number of days-off in lieu which staff can take for being required to work on public holidays. The professional opinion received last week allegedly says that BA's plans are unlawful.
To this must be added a comment concerning "excess baggage vouchers". BA earns considerable sums from passengers checking in with more than their permitted baggage limit - a typical day has been producing additional revenue of £30,000 to £40,000 per day at Terminal 4. That's £1 million in a month! As an incentive to CSU staff at the check-in desks, the airline has shared these spoils with them for some time in the form of Capital Bond vouchers (although a rough and ready calculation suggests that the airline was keeping 85% of this straight-to-the-bottom line income). However since 1 November, frequent travellers are noticing an apparently much more lenient approach to charging for excess baggage. In fact this 'nice little earner' is now producing only a quarter of the £1 million per month. Why? Well, BA's management evidently decided that this was too good to share with its staff and the voucher scheme was discontinued at the end of October. Result? Such is the bad feeling among staff that there is much less enthusiasm for collecting excess baggage charges, often a cause of abuse.
So, BA makes the same mistake as many service industries have made in the past and while the accountants, statisticians and managers generally are ensconced at Waterside, a safe distance from the paying customer, those in the front line are paid least and suffer working conditions which their management colleagues would not tolerate. Here is a major publicly-owned business which recognises that it treats badly those people who have most contact with the customer - and it does not seem to care.
The management have demonstrated their ability to mis-read the business many times in the past. They are doing so now and the signs of serious discontent are there. Over last week-end, managers could not find anyone willing to work overtime for love nor money. That's why passengers trying to check-in were queued up and down the Terminal and along the tunnel to the Hilton Hotel - First Class, Club, World Traveller - no difference. Duty Managers had to allow some flights to depart without passengers - and others were cancelled or delayed.
Shareholders would do well to consider the possibility of a strike at Terminal 4. That would have an effect equal to a pilots' strike. We should challenge the Company - look at the opulence of the Terraces passenger lounges and the delighful surroundings of Waterside and then begin by asking why it is that they will not even provide paper or plastic cups in the cramped staff rest-rooms at T4.
Accept my promise - I have no personal axe to grind but I am in a position to know that BA is regarded widely as a bad employer (ask a pilot) and until it changes its ways and allows people to feel valued, it should not claim to be a World-class business.
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