Virgin - Crew Discussions II

[Grease 7]

If employer offered London weighting then the commute to work would not be as expensive, so london weighting could be an argument of T&C e.g. crew who are Manchester based should they be on same Basic as crew who are London Based ?

I give up! - Did you know when you took the job that London weighting was not offered?

Here is an alternate view point for you:

If I worked the hours that you do my total salary would, without question, be less than yours. That is with over 20 years experience and an EASA Engineer's licence.

You could quite easily be working in a job you hate 9-5 Monday to Friday for quite a lot less money than you earn. There are millions that do. Just look at what you do have and remember that before you vote for a strike and potentially lose either yourself or others their jobs.

[scoobydooo]

Grease 7

Here is an alternate view point for you:

If I worked the hours that you do my total salary would, without question, be less than yours. That is with over 20 years experience and an EASA Engineer's licence.

My alternate response to your alternate perspective

So get in a union and get what you deserve - be proactive,DO something about it. If however you are not prepared to make your working life and conditions better stop gving crew who are prepared to fight in what they believe a hard time

also as per edit above, the issue of such things as weightings have become more apparent when you look at how the cost of living in the south has drastically increased over recent years without our salaries moving in line (yours too).

Coor blimey I'm tired now, I cant keep replying must have sleeeeep.

[Grease 7]

You have missed my point.

Far from giving the crew a hard time I am simply pointing out a universally recognised fact.

I cannot live the lifestyle I want to live on that money. To expect any company to raise my wages so I can afford to work half the hours is wholly unrealistic so rather than join a union an fight for it I CHOOSE to work my 2080 hours per year which makes my salary up to a level that I feel I can live comfortably on. Perfectly reasonable in my opinion.

[vs_lhr]

So get in a union and get what you deserve - be proactive,DO something about it. If however you are not prepared to make your working life and conditions better stop gving crew who are prepared to fight in what they believe a hard time

That's a good idea. Unionise the whole company, and cripple it completely. Don't suppose you remember the 70s and early 80s, do you? Remember the miners strike? The deep divisions it caused. What did that achieve?

This whole thing is a mess, and 50% of the fault has to lie with the union itself who have been inept at every stage, right up to the inflammatory press statement on Friday.

[Raffles]

"How many time do I have to say this? The hourly rates for CC are not that different to Technicians. And Technicians are pretty well paid compared to other ground staff. That means that your rates are well up there and certainly above a lot of ground and office staff." Sorry my old friend G7, but that's not really a fair comment as a technician (cabin) is paid a higher basic wage than the crew manager!!!

[vs_lhr]

Do you want to know the proposed date too?

Yes please.

[Wee Jock McPlop]

Message From The SLF

Ladies/Gents,

Firstly, I've flown Virgin a number of times and must commend the CC for what is, in my opinion, a first class service - even to those of us in the cheap seats! But I am concerned that many of you advocating strike action seem to completely ignore the impact your actions will have on the SLF and possibly the future of your airline as a whole.

My family and I are booked with you guys for what will be our first proper family holiday in years - it's been a busy few years. Now I'm not looking for a sympathy vote (far from it), but if your strike action results in my family losing our holiday, which I've paid a great deal of money for, I will be less than pleased. The same feelings will no doubt apply to the many other SLF who fly with you.

The bottom line is that the SLF are lucky enough still to have a choice of who we fly with, wherever it is in the world we wish to go. There are plenty of airlines out there looking for our business. If my holiday is lost, then I will exercise that choice and not give Virgin my business in the future. No matter how good you may appear to be, your strike action (if it goes ahead) will impact greatly on the lives of many - not just you guys. In such a competative market place, is strike action really the best way of going about things? I'm not being provocative. Just letting you see another point of view.

WJMcP

[sign-it-to-your-room]

And thats just one pax and their family. Can you imagine how many more we are isolating even at this stage without the ballot papers even going out?
I'm seriously worried

[Jcdcon]

Am I being silly?? What is SLF???

[Minnie38]

As a close relative of cabin crew I can see where you are all coming from, my sister does a fantastic job and is poorly paid (I'm not going to go into the rights and wrongs), she voted no originally (so she tells me) but she doesn't know what to do now (again, so she tells me).

Well, unfortunately the damage is already starting since the press publicised the potential strike.

I work for a large company who fly frequently to the States, all our staff fly in Upper Class.

As soon as the cat was out of the bag so to speak, we've been issued a directive to use other carriers (namely BA). I'm not talking a few passengers here, I'm talking a significant number.

You can imagine what similar businesses are going to be doing as well, not to mention the holiday members like WJMcP above.

I've also got a flight coming up shortly (personal, paid for out of my own pocket) - will I be gutted if my holiday is ruined, yes, will I fly Virgin again,
to be honest probably not for a while at least, because from a passenger point of view, once there's strike action you know it can happen again and you don't want another holiday ruined.

I know you guys deserve more but please think very carefully what you're going to do, not just strike because you're so p'd off with Virgin and it's management. An airline only makes money from it's passengers, if those passengers fly elsewhere and you end up with empty planes, what is going to happen - pretty simple really.

I will always back you guys as I really do know how hard you work and everything that's involved but I don't honestly think striking is the best way of going about it. Sorry.

[av8rboyz]

wee Jock


wee Jock

I am not A virgin crew member, however i am cabin crew with many years service.

Do you have any idea how hard it is for Virgin crew????
The money they are on is shocking to say the least! And they work very hard for it! Not only that but why should they not fight for the same rights as other airline staff enjoy i.e. london weighting or better pay scales??? They have to be one of the lowest paid crew in the UK!

Im sure that if you were unhappy with the conditions you worked under or the amount of money you earn then you would say something to your employer!
I see that passengers enjoy the service that these under paid, over worked and under appreciated crew provide.

Just remember that for their duty hours they are probably on or under Min hourly wage!

Get a grip! If your plans are disrupted i would feel for you, but they aint doing it for the good of their health!!
Show some sympathy and compassion for the crew!!

[warkman]

Warkman - if you don't beleive me about how long the strike will be then why not ring Unite the Union like I did and ask yourself!
Do you want to know the proposed date too?

Hang on a min!
Where did I say I did not believe you??
All I posted was I had not heard that before.

Proposed date? yes please, that would be useful

[regularpassenger]

Firstly, as you can tell by my screenname I am SLF so I'm declaring my interest straight off.

All I have is a question for the CC. Alot has been made of the different package Virgin provide you with as opposed to what you may get at say BA. My understanding from reading this and other forums is that you get better "perks" in your contract than BA staff like travel etc - is this correct? If so would you be willing to sacrifice these to be on a similar package as BA CC?

BTW I fly VS quite a bit these days, and you guys rock!

Cheers,

Regularpassenger

[Wee Jock McPlop]

av8rboyz,

Let's not descend into a slanging match and I do not need to get a grip. I was mearly offering another point of view. I fully appreciate the work CC do and understand the conditions they work in. Indeed, my first sentence was a compliment to the Virgin guys/girls for the excellent service they provide.

My point is that if you provide a service and you hurt the very people that use that service, they will in all likelyhood exercise their right to choose. If you go out for a meal and get a crap service, are you going to go back to that eatery? Unlikely. The same applies here. Do you really think that I'm going to back a company that ruins a holiday that I've worked long and hard and paid a lot of money for? I'm sorry for the cabin crew, but my sympathy stops as soon as it effects my plans. You pay for a service and you expect to get one. Sorry, but only the naive would expect me and the other SLF to understand. That's the other point of view that I was talking about.

WJMcP

[sign-it-to-your-room]

Firstly SLF = Self Loading Freight

regularpassenger: In short NO, the majority of CC would not be willing to sacrifice their perks. Happy to compare themselves to BA, but not able to actually comprehend what life is like without requested weekends off and free flights.

FAO av8rboyz
"I see that passengers enjoy the service that these under paid, over worked and under appreciated crew provide."
Are you for real?
We're not bloody Victorian chimney sweeps. We work a max of 900 hrs a year. My family travel free across the world, mainly in Upper. I have a great pension and excellent health cover. I've lost count of the parties that I have attended all paid for by the company, but thats probably because I'm too busy sipping cocktails from my 4* hotel in Barbados!Oh yes, and I take home approx £1600 pm plus flight allowances which can be anything up to £600 if I save them. Under appreciated? Everyone gets a review on them on every flight plus a detailed report on them every 3 months, not to mention a letter the moment something other that the norm occurs on board, thats not under appreciated, Management are not here to blow our noses and wipe our bums!

Wee Jock is 100% correct in his/her posting. Why should the very people who keep us in a job give a rats arse about how poor we are? Not their problem. So VAA are not currently in line with other airlines, trust me we soon will be, but not if we strike.

[back2front]

I would definately give up staff travel perks in order to get paid similiar to BA.

BA crew are paid approx £10k more than Virgin crew. The basic pay is about the same but BA crew also get paid for long range flights, overtime etc. Virgin get paid either nothing or a very small amount £10 for example if a flight is delayed over a certain amount of time. Meal allowances are also much better than at Virgin. All these add up to the £10k extra I mentioned.

Staff travel at VS is good. We get 7 free flights a year + tax. After 3 years these are upgradeable. A very nice perk but don't forget they are on a standby basis so you can't often get on flights. Because our pay is so poor its also difficult to pay for hotels etc when you are away on holidays.

BA (and most airlines) get 90% discount on flights + tax, again on standby. So for example a flight LHR-JFK with VS would cost crew about £80 in tax. BA crew would pay about £150 including tax.

So yes I would be more than happy to give up my staff travel benefits in order to get paid £10k more.

Don't forget that staff travel doesn't cost airlines that much anyway because as staff you only get on if the seat hasn't been sold.

[vs_lhr]

I would definately give up staff travel perks in order to get paid similiar to BA.

If you want the same pay & benefits as BA, then go work for BA. If you want to work for Virgin, they clearly laid their stall out when you applied. Don't ruin peoples lives in your campaign to make VS something it is not.

[regularpassenger]

Thanks Back2Front for clearing that up for me.

For what its worth this SLF supports your claim for more equal earnings with your colleagues in other Long Haul airlines.

I'm sure there is still some room for movement on both sides, and hopefully this can be explored over the coming weeks. I hope (obviously as SLF) there isn't a strike as it will inconvience me and beause I generally choose VS over BA cause historically speaking you don't strike! If things get that far, there will not be any winners, I think thats a given.

I wonder if VS have backed themselves into a corner with the deficit being so huge to other airlines over the years. Perhaps they should consider a reasonable rise per year (i.e. the 4.8% already offered for this year) but make this a longer term commitment over say 3-4 years to get where they need to be along side the competition. I don't know if thats something CC would consider (I know there are also alot of other issues in this as well as simple pay)

[Litebulbs]

VS LHR - wot's that, well paid?!

[vs_lhr]

VS LHR - wot's that, well paid?!

You knew what you were signing up for when you joined. You'll make more money working in a shoe shop - but you want to be cabin crew, and what's more you want to be Virgin cabin crew, so you have to look at what they're offering and decide whether that's acceptable for you. Rather than drag the whole company down, either put up with it or move on.