British Airways - CC Industrial Relations & Negotiations

[Poof in Boots]

Lauderdale.

I am not a liberty here to discuss pilots T&C's.

However just to say that they have what BA cabin crew originally wanted. New starter rates (lower of course), then after 5 years they go onto existing pay scales. With cabin crew the low pay starter rate is basically the Single Fleet at LGW, which most crew see as a stepping stone to better T&C's at LHR. Very few crew there are content with their financial situation which condemns them to low pay for ever. It is not a career choice. Soon the bridge to LHR will be burned..

A friend of my daughter got a job as cabin crew at LGWlast year . She lasted five weeks. She would phone up her Dad and say that she was too tired to drive home, such was her fatigue from multiple short sectors and then a longhaul flight the next day. Since she resigned she now has a much better job that pays nearly twice as much. The only good thing to come out of her experience is that she had BA on her CV, which still helps obviously..

[Re-Heat]

With cabin crew the low pay starter rate is basically the Single Fleet at LGW, which most crew see as a stepping stone to better T&C's at LHR.

And is this route open today...?

Facts, PiB, Facts.

[Poof in Boots]

Re-Heat. As you should know, it is the big institutions that make up 99% of the shareholders.

Most of the private shareholders at the AGM criticised Walsh

[Re-Heat]

Irrelevant. One share, one vote. If you want to back your views with your own money, put it all into BA shares. If not, accept that someone else has put up money, which is at risk, and for which they want a return.

If the private shareholders outnumbered the pension funds and investment managers, that would be their choice and they would have comparable influence.

As I said above, that money is from pension funds, funding retirement funds for many UK pensioners. Ultimately, they want the best return.

Private shareholders at BA are not 0.5% of shareholders; thus >99% in favour of management also indicates a majority of private shareholders are also in favour of management.

[Poof in Boots]

So here is Re-Heat, no doubt against the Union block vote at a Labour party conference, but with shareholders it is OK by him.

[Re-Heat]

One share, one vote. That is how UK shareholder democracy operates.

Do you run BASSA differently, and re-run votes repeatedly until you get the answer you want?

Labour block votes operate in an entirely different manner and are well off-topic.

[Crash_and_Burn]

PiB Wrote

I would rather see the airline go bust than support the current LT in BA.

Errr you would rather be unemployed (unemployable) along with all of your friends and colleagues than allow a board supported CEO to change working practices to save jobs and offer people continued employment. Is that correct or am I missing the point?

What a mature way of thinking... toys and pram spring to mind!

My suggestion is that BASSA appoint their own independent - non bribed - qualified auditor to go through both BASSAs and BAs proposal and cost them out. If you don't trust PWC then, transparently, appoint your own...unless BASSA have something to hide?!?

It's pretty obvious to everyone (Apart from a select few) which side are approaching this in an adult and professional manner.

"Opinions are like a$$holes, everyone has one"

[Poof in Boots]

Well, I have been in BA a long time, and I never thought I would see the day that even the Ayling era would be surpassed for fiscal mismanagement, commercial ineptitude and operational naivety.

This is a new low in the history of British Airways. There is no confidence in the current management (apart from shareholders!) from frontline staff who have had to bear the brunt of facing hostile passengers, disruption to work patterns and rosters, and the general undermining of the brand.

Obviously most of you here cannot see it. You picture the current scenario as a management/union standoff. Well, low pay and rubbish T&C's have not made any difference at Aer Lingus or VIRGIN or EXCEL or BMI or countless other operators who have sacrificed quality of service over cutting pay. They are still in the pomme frite.

BA will only survive if it maintains the quality of its people. You cut the pay, you cut the quality. It is as simple as that.

Witness today the upbeat message from our CEO who is apparently now suffering from schizophrenia. One day it is all over unless the cabin crew unions agree to drop their trousers, and today things aren't so bad. Yet OpenSkies has failed. as predicted. What is to be done about this debacle? You could not make it up.

[Re-Heat]

You are right. Management at BA is not very good at all, but that is not a defence for intransigence.

BA will only survive if it maintains the quality of its people. You cut the pay, you cut the quality. It is as simple as that.

Again, I ask, how do you defend that statement in front of your LGW colleagues?

Can you provide any concrete remuneration and operational flexibilty figures for Lufthansa, AF-KLM and Iberia that are based wholly on fact and not rumour?

Do you really want to look into Singapore / Cathay contracts, and compare the service provided by them to the service provided by BA? I'm not sure you want to go down that road...

We come around to the same issues repeatedly.

[Runway vacated]

PiB wrote

A friend of my daughter got a job as cabin crew at LGWlast year . She lasted five weeks. She would phone up her Dad and say that she was too tired to drive home, such was her fatigue from multiple short sectors and then a longhaul flight the next day. Since she resigned she now has a much better job that pays nearly twice as much. The only good thing to come out of her experience is that she had BA on her CV, which still helps obviously..

This is exactly the sort of hearsay and rumour that constitutes "facts" on planet BASSA. ONE person was tired at least ONCE, and the entire package at LGW is unworkable. I guess that makes all the cc working for Virgin, Thompson, First Choice, Thomas Cook etc etc etc, either MUCH more resilient or just plain dumb for working under such awful conditions.

I suggest BA recruit them asap as there will be many vacancies at LHR by Christmas! The dinosaurs at BASSA have made it inevitable.

[Lauderdale]

PIB - you sent me this message;

A friend of my daughter got a job as cabin crew at LGWlast year . She lasted five weeks. She would phone up her Dad and say that she was too tired to drive home, such was her fatigue from multiple short sectors and then a longhaul flight the next day. Since she resigned she now has a much better job that pays nearly twice as much. The only good thing to come out of her experience is that she had BA on her CV, which still helps obviously..

Sorry I haven't replied thus far - it's just that I spent the last 2 hours on the floor laughing my head off. Either your friends daughter suffers from iron-deficient anemia or you have the best sense of humour in the world!

I am very (VERY!) familiar with the rosters and flying patterns in LGW and they are nowhere near as demanding as EZY's or many of the others. I am not saying ezy should be the benchmark but LGW has a quite reasonable andd stable roster pattern that many outthere would love to operate on.

I too know of some stalward BA crew who think a there and back PFO surmounts to inhumane working conditions (God forbid the LGW SSH would ever turn in a there and back!) - but they just make the point that 'they' are still living in 'lala' land.

[Flap33]

PiB,

Before you get shown the door I just want to confirm something you wrote.

You said that standards will only be maintsined whilst you pay good (way above) wages. So are you saying that when your wages are reduced that you will work less hard, or to a lower standard?

I suppose that's another way to get to the dole queue, sacked due to poor performance.

ps. Is this the latest BASSA line?

[Skylion]

I think you must be referring to the union plants on the left hand side of the room and the clearly scripted questions which some read out. The real "non aligned" investors , mainly on the other side of the room, expressed no violent discontent with BA, Willie or anything else. There were some questions and comment about perceived poor service, the move away from Calcutta to Hyderabad, the financial results, Open Skies etc but nothing that looked remotely like a revolt or revolution despite BASSA and Unite having placed their groups strategically to try to make it look as if there were widespread investor unhappiness. These independent investors were also unimpressed by the uniformed staff at the back (the presentations team or whatever they are called) applauding the questions and comments from the plants. It had been assumed that they were there to host the guests, something they signally failed to do, especially at the end when it would have been reasonable to expect them to be at the exit thanking the investors for attending.

[deeceethree]

PiB

BA will only survive if it maintains the quality of its people.

Have you considered leaving then? You obviously don't fit? The choice is yours!

[MrBunker]

Over 99 percent of the shareholders, and therefore over 99% of the shares held therein, voted for the reinstatement of the Chairman and the CFO. That's a fact PiB. That a few private shareholders voted against merely registers as a mild protest vote in the context of the mandate granted to Broughton (and thus his CEO) and Williams to continue as they are. The majority of the people who actually, financially own the airline are happy with it's current stewardship. Have you, possibly, just possibly considered that the fact that barely anyone else sees what you see might be down to the fact that your thinking is erroneous and you've yet to substantiate one strident argument with an actual fact? Or not.

Hey ho,

MrB

[oki]

I believe Willie decided what needed to be done when he witnessed BASSA's response to the snow chaos at the start of the year. At that stage he took the rifle down from the wall. When he saw BASSA treat the BRS process with contempt he inserted a cartridge into the chamber. The Jun 30th deadline came and went, so he pulled the stock firmly into his shoulder. He is now looking down the sights, his finger resting lightly on the trigger, controlling his breathing, and waiting patiently for BASSA to run squealing from the ACAS talks which he will ensure they do at a time of his choosing. Then.....

[No longer ATC]

BANG!
Can't come soon enough, IMHO. Some of them really do have inflated opinions of themselves.

[screwdriver]

PiB Wrote

I would rather see the airline go bust than support the current LT in BA.

I do wish that he had uttered those words ,for real, within range of my old ears (BA since 1975)

Still, as they say, 'A smack in the mouth often offends' or is it ' A smack in the face is worth two in the...'?

Talks like he's already suffereing from some sort of 'blow' !!!!!

[saintjoseph]

re- post 581
rubbish. they're 737 400's. and the service is completed (sandwiches, bar round, duty free, ad hoc's etc) without any problems. i know coz i do it. so is it on an ams with 3, sometimes 4 crew.
remind me how many crew out of lhr do an ams?
don't get me started on long haul either. shall i put the coffee on so you can smell it!

[No longer ATC]

Nice one Joe!
Or rushing service to try and get rest on an eastern seaboard night flt??I've done many 16 hour nights with 30mins break-that's it-no bunks....