British airways pension to close.

[Wireless]

I think Bex has made a good point re voting power of BARP membership. I'll just add one concern I have. I'm a BARP member. The thing that concerns me is voting away colleagues old terms to increase the lower terms. Nothing to do with an emotional response, more what I've seen happening before.

I've witnessed this at other companies. One in particular, was like viewing what is happening at BA but wound on a few years. I'm sure the technique is the oldest trick in the industrial handbook. It's the two tier step down approach. Even though this is pensions and not pay scale being discussed, using "A scale" and "B scale" is easier.

For example - Create a poor by comparison B scale, recruit people onto that and in a few years the voting power will be weighted towards the B scale. Then create a vote to improve the B, whilst abolishing the A. You can see what happens later on. Next it's the B scale that is the target.

In the instance I recall, A scalers at a company were offered to keep their terms at the expense of creation of a lower B scale. I remember one union head did his upmost to warn voters that this is short sighted as a few years hence the disgruntled B scalers, tired of hearing the woes of the A scalers would vote down the terms of the oldies at the next collective bargaining milepost when offered a carrot.

Always ensure the workforce is completely out of concert then divide and concour using 2 steps each time. It's as old as the hills.

On the face of it, it could be argued I'm disagreeing with giving myself a pension improvement (which I'd say we need). However, I hesitate as I would be concerned that the next move a few years hence when the next step down occurs would be far from an improvement to my pension. Say all the young cadets were to be offered a new lower pension - then the process will be set up for a repeat.

Sometimes it pays to show solidarity and pause in the face of rushing temptation. Which comes back to Bex's point that the focus should be on improving the pension for all.