British Airways - CC Industrial Relations & Negotiations

[Carnage Matey!]

please do not bore me with it as my neighbour here in spain specialises in Eu employment law which superceedes any UK law

Well I hope you can wait until the European Court hear your case because here in the UK it'll be heard by UK judges interpreting the case according to UK laws. If they rule against you then you can to the European Court, but you'll be spending a lot of time and a lot of money waiting for that ruling.

[I-said_no]

As we speak, Ba have made contact with my sister by email who was a 9 month temp, to see if see would like to come back. If that is the case the myth about forced redundancies is just that a myth.

[am i bothered]

SOSR is not really a threat in this case. If no one agrees to the new contract then its impossible to impose. You cant recruit ten thousand people train, security check etc. Logistically its impossible. So the SOSR scare is not very credible.

[wobble2plank]

am I bothered,

You fail to grasp the singularly most important fact pertaining to the issue of new contracts.

If you fail to sign the new contract and allow your old contract to expire as a result you will be deemed to have resigned.

Your rather banal,

If no one agrees to the new contract then its impossible to impose.

Doesn't stand up in that case. There will be many who will take the new contract, LGW staff to cover the training time and the minimum requirement, as laid down by the CAA, of 2 days to emergency train replacement crew.

Your choice, but, if I were a betting man, I wouldn't bet on BASSA winning.

[Carnage Matey!]

I think what people are trying to point out is that there's not a hope in hell of getting that kind of solidarity. 10000 refuseniks? I doubt you'd even get 5000 at first, and by the time the reality of that becomes clear you'll be down to far fewer. Few are going to risk their jobs at the moment. As for the temp contractors getting emails, it's an irrelevance. Those emails have been going out periodically for months now. Getting one now has no significance.

[am i bothered]

Oh please. Do u think LGW can cover both fleets when LHR is ten times the size??

Ridiculous. If its deemed that everyone has resigned the operation would grind to a halt. Not that it struggles at the best of times.

This maybe easy to apply in an office but this is not the case here.]

If this was a simple as some wish to dream ask yoursevles why has it not been done ages ago?

[flibbertyjibbet]

As we speak, Ba have made contact with my sister by email who was a 9 month temp, to see if see would like to come back. If that is the case the myth about forced redundancies is just that a myth.

Funnily, I see that more as an attempt to organise strike-breakers. I'm not sure I'd take it as a positive!

[Freddielaker]

There are a lot of posts here which are constrained within 'the box'.

But think outside it. If a strike is called then the operation can be crewed at 1 crew member per 50 pax; forget FCOs, they could be instantly amended by an OMN. Forget any in-flight service, not a problem, we kept going during the GG strike. BA will keep going, but who can hold out longest? I know who my money is on

[TheKabaka]

From memory the MOA (agreements between BA and it's employees) can be terminated with (I think) 90 days notice by either side.

The agreements can be broken at any time, yes it may cause industrial unrest but do not believe they are unbreakable.

[overstress]

Any contract in the UK can be varied with 90 days notice. If you turn up to work after that, you are deemed to have accepted the new agreement.

If you fail to turn up you can be sacked.

[T5 Mole]

Re new hires:

I have seen many businesses that have been permitted to hire immediately following a period of redundancies. There is no compulsion to maintain a hiring ban if no compulsory redundancies take place; SOSR are not compulsory redundancies as such.

SOSR Case Studies:

I-resign.com - Community - Dismissal for SOSR - Some Other Substatial Reason
Unfair Dismissal - Some Other Substantial Reason: Employment Law: Michelmores Solicitors

[HiFlyer14]

The writing is very clearly on the wall now.

1. The VR applicants will know by next Monday if they are successful. Their leave, to be taken before they go, has already been put in the system for October. So they WILL be going.

2. Ex-temps are being contacted as we speak. Trainers are claiming training is scheduled for October. So they will be ready for 1 Nov. Oh. Could that be the day the new agreements will be imposed?

And yet the thing worrying BASSA at the moment is that IFCE are planning a new EF training course for Club Europe.

Even the head banging smilie doesn't quite sum up the sick feeling that all of this brings to my stomach.

How does one go about suing a Union for misrepresentation?

[Carnage Matey!]

Originally Posted by am i bothered

Ridiculous. If its deemed that everyone has resigned the operation would grind to a halt. Not that it struggles at the best of times.

You are labouring under the delusion that everyone will refuse to sign. They won't. There are 3700 taking part time who will have that cancelled if they don't sign. There are full times who would rather keep a job than risk the sack. There are those who simply can't be bothered with a strike. There are those who do not understand what a strike would involve. There are those who do whats best for them and not BASSA (how many volunteered for Willing to Work against union instructions?). You'd be lucky to get even half of the crew to refuse to sign, and the rest will crumble when they realise they could be out of a job, and are relying on nothing more than the word of colleagues that they won't sign too.

This maybe easy to apply in an office but this is not the case here.

Offices generally aren't grossly overmanned. BA is carrying 30-50% more crew than legally required on most flights. Strip that out and you can lose a whole lot of crew and still keep flying. Cabin service will resume when numbers permit. Apparently Air France only use the legal minimum number of SEP qualified crew on an aircraft and the rest are their for service. How fast do you think they could train crew to do service only?

If this was a simple as some wish to dream ask yoursevles why has it not been done ages ago?

Because Eddington and Ayling didn't have the balls to do it. Thats the only reason it wasn't done.

[FlexSRS]

There was a pro-BASSA post that was removed that was basically saying that the 3700 crew wanting part time would still go on strike as they wouldn't accept part time 'at any cost', basically saying that the cost to them would outweigh the advantages of going part time.

Sadly I think you are wrong. If the BA proposal goes ahead, the 'cost' to those wanting part-time is just that they might have to work a bit harder on the occasional days they pitch up to work. Sure, they might not get their two local nights in Glasgow after being strong-armed by BASSA during disruption, but by their very nature, part-timers want more time at home, and less time in a hotel by a motorway flyover in Glasgow. The only people pushing for a financial cost are BASSA, who offered a paycut that not only the vast majority of CC didn't want, BA themselves didn't even want! Good one.

Oh, and how kind of BASSA to offer an increment freeze. (considering that allegedly most of the BASSA reps are on the top scale anyway, so an increment freeze doesn't matter to them!)

So, what you have to ask yourself is, will crew who are desperate for part-time, and would have seen no way of getting it for 10-15yrs unless they have kids, turn down such a fantastic lifestyle opportunity, when all they have to 'give' in return is to work a little bit harder, and maybe not have 2 local nights? I predict that you would be trampled in the stampede!

[Ancient Observer]

A little bit of clarity

Two points of clarity.
In the UK an employer can make any number of people redundant and recruit any number of people whenever they want. There is no legal time-block between redundancies and hiring. Whoever said there was is wrong.
There are issues in so doing - the individual could lose the tax-free element of any lump sum, and other minor issues, but that's it.

What happens thereafter - in terms of Tribunals, "fairness" and so on, is simply a part of the employer "clearing up" afterwards. The legal view of "fairness" is often not the common sense view!!

As a matter of policy, Unite do not "agree" the criteria for selection for redundancy. They may/may not be more or less vociferous if they are consulted about them, and do not disagree with them, but they do not "agree" them.

Could we please have a comment from a Bassa rep. about their "duty of care" to their members?

[deeceethree]

Could we please have a comment from a Bassa rep. about their "duty of care" to their members?

You won't get it, because there is obviously no such thing where BASSA is concerned.

[FlexSRS]

Could we please have a comment from a Bassa rep. about their "duty of care" to their members?

You'll be lucky! General opinion amongst the troops is that they are more concerned about retaining their au-pairs and commuting to their tax-friendly sunny getaways and thinking about the benefits of Val d'Isere vs St. Moritz for the winter hols. You know, the kind of thing that the majority of main crew worry about....

I don't think there has been one satisfactory answer to any of the very real and relevant questions that have been asked by crew on this thread (or over on CF/BF) All you will get is some inane 'Bassa 100%' remark, or something saying 'well, what about the price fixing, and the oil price, and terminal 5'

Seeing as though we're not going to get a proper response from them, would anyone else care to answer how many cabin crew would be in surplus as a result of the hulls being stood down over the winter? I'm not sure of the crewing levels used on WW.

'Carnage Matey!', you seem like someone who would be able to calculate it for us? Or have a ballpark figure at least?

[Glamgirl]

Figures....

My math skills aren't the best, but I know that most 747's have 15 cc each, sometimes 16, depending on route/config.

The 757s have a crewing level of between 5 and 7 depending on route/flight time/departure time

I think these are the only two aircraft types that are being put to sleep for the winter.

Maybe someone else could do the calculations?

Gg

[TopBunk]

Glam

I would suggest that Longhaul aircraft require about 8-9 crews per aircraft and shorthaul about 4-5 crews.

Using your figures 15x8 (or 9) crews = 120 (135) cabin crew per 747 stood down and say 6x4.5 = 26 cabin crew per 757 stood down.

What is it? 8 747's and 6 757's? If so about 1000 longhaul cabin crew and about 150 shorthaul cabin crew. Note - this assumes the same number of crew on board going forward. The numbers in surplus increases if the number on-board decrease.

Just ballpark numbers ....

[Litebulbs]

Now using these figures show where BA are taking a gamble. Just say 1200, but the actual head count is 2000 to go. I would imagine that they would be justified in reducing head count, due to the work not being there. But to then use SOSR to justify reducing the complement at the same time is pushing reasonableness.

As I said earlier, I cannot find both redundancy and SOSR used at the same time. If you then look at VR, then OK the head count will come down, but you still have the existing agreements on crew levels, so a 90 day notice on existing contracts will have to be served. You serve notice on a contract, then you are not using SOSR, therefore you leave yourself open to 1000's of unfair dismissal claims.