Some interesting points.
Regarding salaries/ringfencing etc,
maxprop is quite right. The company could easily have done what many others have done over the years, and make the CRJ guys redundant- and then offer them new jobs on the D8 with new T's and C's. Quite legal and commonly done.
Similarly, regarding sickness, I am 99% certain that
smokie is wrong on that one as well, as a condition of employment is a valid medical. That is a different situation to a person who simply cannot attend work due long-term sickness. As soon as you lose your medical, you have broken your contract. In any case, the company has kept people for well in excess of six months on occasion- which simply reinforces the point. I'm no expert on contract law, but I would imagine that the company can do quite a lot, as long as it isn't
specifically mentioned in the contract, and doesn't affect your statutory rights.
Regarding the pay negotiations, there is a lot of mis-information about regarding that. The negotiations are not just on-going, but close to a resolution from what I have heard. Expect to hear more in the near future. With all that is going on at the moment, I am not at all surprised that the MD wasn't (allegedly) well briefed. I say "allegedly" as I wasn't there, and nor were the rest of you.
excrab
the Q400 may have some faults what is wrong with it from a pilots viewpoint - modern glass cockpit, good FMS, Fadec...
Whatever floats your boat. Many of your colleagues that fly it don't seem so keen. Mind you, I expect some crews enjoy all the time off they get when it breaks!!
I wonder if the CRJ boys would agree it's the same if you don't look at the engines. Nope, thought not!
puddle-jumper2
Unfortunately it doesn't help matters when we hear rumours that the latest BALPA pay claim was ignored by Jim right up to the last minute and then only looked for a total of 15mins during the pay negotiation meetings before basically being ignored again
Well... perhaps you shouldn't listen to rumours then! More to the point, try looking at it from JFs point of view. He would have gone to the meeting knowing exactly how much money was available for pay rises without endangering the financial future of the company. Any proposal for more than that figure, in isolation, would obviously be rejected out of hand irrespective of what the rest of the document said. Now that some negotiation has taken place, we will no doubt see a little movement our way- but I doubt it will be more than a tiny increase on the present offer. The proposal, whilst obviously the minimum we would like, is pretty ambitious for a company only just emerging from near-death.
surely it is the job of a manager to motivate his/her staff which involves communication for him/her to their staff, not the other way round.
I absolutely agree, and I think this is an area where the company consistently fails to meet even a minimum standard (I'm sure I'll get an angry phone call or two for saying that, but it remains the truth). All our managers should be sent on communication courses next week (or earlier if possible). It isn't the individual managers fault; they have never been properly equipped for their roles, as far as I can tell. I, for one, am fed up with emails that never get responded to, voicemails that never result in a response, hearing that my base is under threat from Servisair, and the sheer pointlessness of trying to get anybody in EXT to answer a telephone after 3pm on a friday!
And finally... my boy has one of those Fisher Price toy jets, it does look a lot like a 146...!!!