vsgla

Here's a thought,

If the BAA staff (unite members) go on strike when they propose to,around the 2-6th of January closing down all the major airports, how does the company intend to absorb that loss coupled with the loss they will incur when the cabin crew go on strike just days later.

The company are so sure they can deal with a potentially damaging so called minority walk out of its crew but have they informed its flying club members and other paying customers of the disruption that our comrades at BAA will cause.

That sounds to me like even bigger losses if they don't get back round the table with the only work force it has the power to stop going on strike.

Don't under estimate the power of this union.The largest of its kind in the Civil Air Transport(CAT) sector.

Hate to rain on your parade office staff, but it looks like your gonna have to start taking us seriously after all.

I hate to say it but "WE DESERVE MORE MONEY"

Who ever you are guys, come back. All is forgiven.

vsgla

Just a reminder

Unite the union repesents the fire service(among other key services) at all the major airports in the uk and it looks like they aren't going to reach agreement before they vote to take action in the first week of January.

This is the power of union representation.

Without sounding too militant. Lets see you deal with this lot Ridgeway and co.

Time to get back round that table eh....

vs_lhr

Your conclusions only highlight your inability to grasp the facts. There is absolutely no way you can know that the 1000 people in the union who abstained will suddenly join in industrial action. Actually, what seems more likely is that fence-sitters will not take part in any strike, because it will cost them personally. A very likely scenario is that pressure from the company and the loss in pay will seriously chip away at the 1497 crew who already voted yes. Support will go down, not up.

There is an ugly militancy growing here. At one stage this was about sending a message to the company that the deal wasn't good enough. Now that it's reached this stage and the company has clearly stated the last offer was the best offer, there's a wierd blood-lust coming through from those who just want to hurt VS. You couldn't force the rise you wanted, so now you just want to give the company a good kicking.

You're playing with peoples lives. It's irresponsible, immature and reckless. You should be ashamed.

Justanotherpax

At the risk of repeating myself and others, this is all getting very ugly. Also, as a VS customer, very concerning for the future of the airline.

I don't see any hope of a deal before 9 Jan. It just seems that too many people are taking too much glee in the prospect of a strike, rather than an amicable pay deal (I know plenty of you will deny this, but take a read of this thread and honestly tell me it's not true).

lgw-morph

vsgla,

Other departments are already feeling disgruntled.

VAA have outsourced so many departments over the last few years, the family atmosphere has well and truely gone.

About five years ago, there was a plan to outsource all deparments with the exception of thoes who are customer facing, yet even some of thoes are now staffed by external companies (in Virgin uniform).

VAA has changed, and will not return to the company we enjoyed working for, thoes days have gone.

I truely support the Cabin Crew guys, you have a very demanding job, and deserve to be rewarded for it.

Fournier Boy

If the BAA staff (unite members) go on strike when they propose to,around the 2-6th of January closing down all the major airports, how does the company intend to absorb that loss coupled with the loss they will incur when the cabin crew go on strike just days later.

Just another example of not knowing what you are talking about. We pay BAA lots of money (even more as of next year as landing fees are due to go up 17%) to use the UK airports, however money does pass both ways. Any losses made by airlines affected by a BAA strike are directly claimable back from BAA as breach of contract. This happens nearly everyday.

For example, one of ours is late on stand because the stand its allocated is occupied by another carrier. As a result leaves say 15 mins late - purely due to this other carrier not leaving the stand allocated to VS by the BAA. BAA will charge us for not being off stand on time, we in turn will charge BAA for not clearing our allocated stand in time, BAA would then pass this on the the original delaying carrier.

Thats how it works all the time, thats why there are code delays for everything. If LSG hold up boarding due to catering and it goes late, they get charged, if crew are late through security, the bus gets charged, or BAA security gets charged. You may remeber this happened earlier this year with the LGW refuelers, their company backed down as it would have had to have stumped up the airlines losses.

However this is why the BAA will come up with a deal for its members, I'm not sure on how many airlines serve the BAA airports, however they would all be able to claim their losses back from BAA, a figure that would run to 100's of million. That is why Virgin is not panicked by this, a BAA strike cannot go ahead as not only would BAA lose income, but they would have to pay out a fortune.

VS on the other hand, would lose money yes, but it wouldn't be paying anything out (other than the refunds and small amounts of food vouchers etc) but nowhere near the amounts BAA would pay. However this would be short lived because as a result, we'd bill the BAA, and we get the money back.

I and many of my colleagues also feel that you have nothing to achieve by doing this. The company offered you more money, you've thrown it back at them. The time for an 11th hour deal has already passed, if it were to have come at all (which I never believed it would) it would have been last week, to stop you all voting for strike and to stop the press coverage.

I therefore think that the company will hold its word and not give you another deal. You will therefore not only lose your deal, but lose your pay for the days you are on strike. So you gain NOTHING, achieve chaos, bad press, and damage the company maliciously. This in turn causes problems for everybody, passengers and staff alike. You all have nothing to gain, and have already lost out - why continue?

scoobydooo

Becasue we are sick to the teeth of having to give up conditions just to keep an even keel, time the company stopped taking the pi$$.

This isn't about one set of negotioations FB, this is years of frustration now reaching climax, this set of negotiations is the straw that broke the camels back.

Fournier Boy

Nobody gets something for nothing, you either give up conditions and get more money, or you go to work more and get more money - its simple.

You (crew) evidently don't want to work standby more - which seems to be the only way to sort crew down (this being the crew down because somehow your department manages to AVERAGE NEARLY 30 DAYS SICK PER PERSON PER YEAR ). Some argue the company needs more people - rubbish. There of course will be a natural turnover per year as some of the younger crew get the travel bug out of them and leave for pastures new. But the the overwhelming issue is your (crew) sickness.

Say there are 4500 crew, thats 135,000 days lost per year due sickness. Based on my other halfs roster, she averaged 10 days work a month, 120 days in 2007 including standby. If you imagine all the sick taken by the same people, 1125 Cabin Crew wouldn't work for an entire year.

Effectively the airline already has 133% of the cabincrew workforce it needs, how many more do you want employed to cover your (crew) sickie?

scoobydooo

Your argument is sound, but... every airline suffers the same problem so it's not really virgin specific. i.e. the other airlines offer a fair deal with the same problems why cant virgin.

If your response is going to be our problem is actually worse than other airlines, perhaps you should ask - why ?

coax

As an engineer with the company all I can say is you had better hold out for whatever it is that you want because none of the rest of us are going to get anything for the next few years due to your actions so you had better make sure its worth it,you have already lost any support for you from engineering.On the aircraft yesterday the cabin crew were all happy that they where going to get a few days extra paid holiday by going on strike,your not the company are going to pay you nothing and fair play to them I say.

scoobydooo

reply rather than edit the last.

Perhaps the company should consider reading some of the papers and projects that have been undertaken in the workplace to reduce sickness (as it does cost employers significantly). I dont mean punishment I mean reward as it has been proven that it works and punishment does not.

That would be things like work related pay, low basics but high rewards in trip pay allowances etc etc. You cant win offering low basic and low rewards/allowances/ trip pay in other words, what virgin does now.

If Virgin hasn't figured this by now it never will.

-
Sorry you feel like that coax, I hope your guys can join a union and get what you duly deserve like we are trying to achive and tthe pilots did (yes I know it was different )

Fournier Boy

Virgin shouldn't have to reward sickness incentives, maybe to a small amount when the problem is small, but when a quarter of you are not turning up, it needs to get strict. Personally I believe, the problem grows exponentially, a few people go sick for a busy vegas, then others don't want to do a vegas, because it goes crew down, so they go sick. Then all vegas's become one to go sick for and the problem gets worse and worse.

The company tries to get round this by giving more standby, to allow you the cover, yet you don't want to do standby. Standby is there purely to cover for sickness, or crew out of hours due tech or whatever reasons. In theory if everyone goes to work, standby wouldn't be needed. Your gripe is, standby has increased, this will be purely due to sickness increasing.

And as an aside, if you knew anything about engineering, there is no big drive for unionisation, because funny enough, we're pretty happy where we are. We have a staff committee that meet with management to discuss things we have minor problems with and these get rectified over time. Of course we'd all like a bit more pay, but funny enough, those that want more money, go out, get more qualifications, get more experience, and jump up the payscale - as you would if you wanted more money in any job. We all got 2%, more would have been nice, but then again, at least we got more money, and we're still employed, so for a year in aviation, thats pretty good. What we don't do is ask for something for nothing. Thats what you've done, they offered you 4.8%, but you'd have to work a bit more - you turned it down. Now you have nothing.

Well done.

vs_lhr

>sigh<

Why is your answer to everyone who is going to be negatively effected by your actions to join a union? So the whole workforce can make unrealistic demands on the company and bring it to its knees before we've had a chance to toast in the new year?

Unite has already proved how bad a union can be. God forbid that kind of chaos is unleashed across the whole organisation.

If you can stop waving that red flag for a minute, you'll be able to see your greed is going to cost those around you a lot of money.

Happy Christmas.

teifiboy

Apologies if already covered, but what is the situation with those chosing to strike down route? Will they expect their non striking co-workers to operate the flights home minimum crew? Will they be accomodated extra nights down routes at the company's cost. Can imagine some very angry non-strikers itching to get home after a 9 day HKG-SYD trip and being told that it is now a 11 day HKG-SYD

warkman

After this is over, Virgin should put all Cabin crew onto external contract staff basis, so that if they go out on strike, or go "sick" they don't get paid, like most industries now operate.

then the small group of militants can be removed from service.

scoobydooo

FB - so how do you think we should get those repeat sick offenders to come in ? I am not talking about rewarding people to coming to wokr I am talking about making it an incentive i.e. its too expensive not to come to work, erm let me think now... ah yes like BA and the charters do with duty pay.

We shall see, thanks for the well done and Merry Christmas to you all.

scoobydooo

That is a great idea warkman, freelance/contract staff can generally command 2-3 x permenant staff. Naturally they would have to pay us all our redundancies too - I like it but I dont think the company will go for it.

Pistol Called

"Will they be accomodated extra nights down routes at the company's cost"... Errr NO!
My bet is that no one goes on strike so as to prolong a trip and about 8 CC actually strike from UK.

scoobydooo

tefi

The union is sending further info 4th Jan, but you can always mail them direct you can get BB and DK email address from union website.

warkman

After 12 weeks striking they can terminate your employment anyway scooby.
Good luck finding alternative employment as CC with thei black mark on your record.
Now, six weeks to train cabin crew........