British Airways - CC Industrial Relations Mk VI

[Snas]

BA strike talks: tomorrow is NOT deadline - Travel Trade Gazette

Round and around we go....... There goes a few more forward bookings...!

[biteme]

A few points of order.
The statement that I made was that we as members are all collectively BASSA.
Not so much as we all think the same, but the union is not just the reps, rather all the members.
The CREW FORUM is not the BASSA forum they are run completely separate.
You do not have to be a BASSA member to have access to the crew forum.
I find it strange that the only few pages available through a Google search are the ones with the most militant anti BA comments in them.
I will not betray peoples trust by copying and pasting their posts on another forum.
I believe that the person who copied the forum posts onto the open Internet did so to display a negative image of BA cabin crew.
Please trust me when I say that the vast majority of the cabin crew community are well educated people with a balanced view of what is going on.
The crewforum is a place where you will get a balanced view as all crew can join, no union membership is required.
We are trying to negotiate with our employer to ensure we have a reasonable future with a company we are proud to work for.

[Openclimb]

We are trying to negotiate with our employer to ensure we have a reasonable future with a company we are proud to work for.

Pity you didn't try before the deadline for end of negotiations on 30 June last year!

[HiFlyer14]

How on earth will a pay cut now, of whatever size or proportions, PREVENT new fleet from occurring in the future?

I may have misread it but haven't BASSA spent the last donkey's years saying they "don't trust management" "BA are liars" blah blah blah. What, are they now saying BA are to be trusted to EMBARGO ANY FUTURE CEO's from bringing in New Fleet?

If what you are saying is true, and that is what the union have proposed, then it simply proves that we have been even more misrepresented than first thought. Even I didn't think that was possible.

I am BA cabin crew and this is my own viewpoint and not that of BA.

[biteme]

Openclimb
For me the words deadline and negotiation do not sit well together.

[Flap62]

biteme:

I find it strange that the only few pages available through a Google search are the ones with the most militant anti BA comments in them.

According to BASSA

PWC are in BA's pocket
The British justice system is in BA's pocket
The British press are in BA's pocket
PCCC and BALPA are in BA's pocket

Have Google joined the worldwide conspiracy against BASSA?

[Lord Bracken]

Negotiations always have to have deadlines. Otherwise there's an incentive for one party to stonewall for ever with the aim of continuing with the status qu....oh, wait.

[Snas]

For me the words deadline and negotiation do not sit well together.

I agree with that sentiment, however, a deadline exists in so far as there is a date on which strike action ceases to be an option for BASSA of course.
I don't think BA for their part have a deadline they are worried about, they are prepared for a strike* and I would imagine expect one. They have also implemented the crew compliment changes they wanted of course.

I don't see a deadline for BA. I do see one for BASSA though.


* (I can’t think of a UK company that's ever had so much forward planning time of strike action actually)

[BlueUpGood]

Bashareholder..

your figures for flight crew are simply nonsense. Please provide exact figures / references you have used. A close examination of your methodology will find you are at fault I'm afraid.

[Papillon]

I have had some research undertaken to discover the facts behind the rhetoric (from both sides) and have come up with the following, indisputable evidence.

Think you need to do rather more than just assert something for it to be "indisputable" or indeed "evidence".

[Finnster]

and your point is?

[dave747436]

Bashareholder

As you know, there's lies, damn lies, & statistics.

Your statistics show "average cost to the company"........NOT........."average pay rise" as you have stated.

Take this (exaggerated) example:

10 Cabin Crew are employed on, say, £30000/yr, all have been in BA for ages & are top of scale. (10x£30000=£300000)

9 leave.

9 new Cabin Crew are employed on, say, £15000, all starting at the bottom of scale. (9x£15000 plus 1x£30000 = £165000)

By your calculations each individual CC member has taken an approx 45% pay cut, even the remaining top-of-scale Crew member.

What has actually happened, of course, is that NOONE has taken a pay cut, but the "cost to the company" has fallen.

My point (eventually!) is that your view might be correct.

Equally, Cabin Crew might have a higher turnover than Pilots, or perhaps there's a lower percentage of Pursers & CSD's in 2008 than there was in 2001 (and that's a fact.)

Statistics, tricky things.

I'll accept your acceptance that you might be wrong after you've digested the above.

[Re-Heat]

Are you suggesting that the data from the CAA is incorrect? After all that is where all the rhetoric about Cabin Crew and their market rate pay is coming from - the CAA and their data is given to them from BA

BAShareholder - you really need to understand seniority / recruitment / retirement patterns to make any sense of the numbers you have used; you are simply using the top-line figure for the entire workforce cost, rather than a more detailed analysis of each pay point.

The only use those figures provide is a useful analysis of the competitive position vis a vis the other airlines on the analysis. BA is uncompetitive in many of those cost lines - that is the only conclusion that you can feasibly draw from it.

[wascrew]

new

Bashareholder

Looking at the CC costs does not some of the reason for the percentage increases not being the same as other groups be

1) LGW Single Fleet introduction
2) For every legacy crew member leaving at LHR through wasteage (natural or VR) their repaclement is someone on the 1997 `new contract`?

Outside of the percentage increases or lack of them the CAA figures as quoted in the court case judgement


``BA LHR Worldwide: £60
Eurofleet: £58
By way of comparison:
Longhaul
Emirates: £27
Virgin: £20-27
BA Gatwick: £37
Shorthaul
BMI: £33
Easy Jet: £20
BA Gatwick: £37``


have more relevancy to BA`s crew costs for 13500 crew and it this that BA are trying to address?

[DeepBreath]

Bashareholder

Interesting that your post is cut-and-pasted from the BASSA forum.
It's also on Crewforum, verbatim.

What's also quite revealing is that on Crewforum, for example, there's been hundreds of 'views' of this posting, and over a dozen OUTRAGED replies - but not one of the hundreds of crewmembers who have read this posting has pointed out the flaw in the authors' reasoning.

It cometh from BASSA, it must therefore be true.

[Runway vacated]

bashareholder, I'm afraid you are way, way off base with your assertions.

The CAA website is quite clearly labelled "Airline Personnel COSTS", and costs are NOT the same as PAY. There are many, many reasons that "Costs" may increase, whilst "Pay" remains static. Pension contributions for one. So a statistical analysis based on this data is meaningless. Sorry.

Trying to rope in other department's costs on this forum has been repeatedly declared "Verboten", so lets just stick to CC shall we?

There is no yardstick available in the world of mathematics or philosophy that does not show that BA CC are paid considerably above market rate. Whether it is by 10% or 30% is irrelevant, they are still at the top of the tree. Your CAA table also quite clearly shows the relative COST of a BA steward/ess compared to one of their contemporaries is also quite high - by some 30% compared to the next highest COST cabin crew, the well known layabouts in Easyjet, in 2008.

As such, they are absolutely fair game for a bit of trimming when times are hard, just as every other department has trimmed.

The failure of BASSA to recognise this fact is the main source of the current crisis. It has been as clear as day to everyone else in the company (vide: the popularity of the "Backing BA" campaign), and the shareholders.

The job of the CEO is to ensure that everyone pulls their weight, and he is doing just that. With or without the approval of BASSA.

[Re-Heat]

BAShareholder (or is that "a WW CSD who voted yes!", as your handle on the BASSA forum is...with the exact same posting...?)

Your evidence is not undisputed; it is in fact missing the point of how those figures are aggregated and used. I post below your two links from the other forum - we can all see then the attempt by BASSA reps to put all these figures together and manipulate the facts.

Click below to read for yourselves: http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/739...creasesrpi.jpg

Here is the link to all the documentation on the CAA website: Search Results | Search for ?airline Personnel Costs? in the Search all CAA category - Result no. 11 to 17 | CAA
This is expenditure; not salary. Note that "other crew" comprises 12 individuals per the CAA. Hardly a useful metric. Come back with a rank / seniority distribution, and we will have something more robust to discuss.


I don't get it - the union's credibility is based upon them being truthful. This is clearly untruthful and manipulative, as any reasonable or objective observer can see!

It is also quite appalling that the union feels it once again has to use the divide and conquer tactic against other employee groups.

[bashareholder]

Re-heat

The figures are in the public domain and they are on the CAA website in black and white.

These are the same figures that have been rolled out time and time again as to justify market rate - they are factual, they have not been doctored and they are the same figure as quoted by BA time and time again as being the average salary cost for BA Cabin Crew which is £29,900.

And others on here have made very valid points that the figures are costs - what remains clear is that Cabin Crew costs in real terms have increased very slightly compared with others, so do Cabin Crew earn £29,900 on average as bandied around by BA - or is that their average 'cost' to the company.

Note that "other crew" comprises 12 individuals per the CAA. Hardly a useful metric. Come back with a rank / seniority distribution, and we will have something more robust to discuss.

They are the figures given to the CAA by BA - take it up with them! (Could be redeployed engineers? - who knows)

What cannot be disputed is the average cost per employee - the non customer facing staff costs are outrageous in comparison to other airlines

[Papillon]

What cannot be disputed is the average cost per employee - the non customer facing staff costs are outrageous in comparison to other airlines

Er, no. Maintenance is higher at many other airlines, Sales and Marketing can only be compared to one other airline, which is based at LGW not LHR by the way which is going to lower overall costs anyway, whilst All Other Personnel is pretty much comparable. Whereas with CC it is double most and 30% more than the next highest. Even by your own figures (which again refer to costs, not pay) it is pretty clear.

[Re-Heat]

Not really. Not to mention that BA are not after your pay packet as an individual, so one has to wonder why you as the union is even going back to this point.

First, you have a costs of 29.7 per head, compared with 20.2 at easyJet, 18.4 at bmi, 14.4 at Virgin, and 13.1 at flyglobespan. Fine - nobody is trying to wrench the whole workforce down to those levels, but that is the factual competitive position.

Multiply that by the crewing factor on each aircraft compared to the competition, and you have your frighteningly high costs per aircraft that BA face every day, and then factor it once again for the fact that the European crew are working half as hard as easyJet crew in terms of flight hours due to the scheduling inefficiencies that keep them away from home.

Per the facts of the court judgement:

easyJet has £20x3 = £60 per hour for a A319 flight (check total crew numbers please someone - I can adjust)
BA has £58x5 = £290 per hour for a A319 flight

BA seeks to remove a crewmember to bring that to £232 per hour, and slowly recruits new crew at £22 per hour on newfleet (+10%), resulting in total costs of £88 per hour in 20 years' time against easyJet's £60 per hour, but with transfer pax and Club product - that is the end result, and the current crew can happily slowly retire on the £58 per hour cost.

Now - if the union had accepted that working practices are outdated, BA could reduce the inefficiences and get an effective cost per hour of £29 per hour by doubling flight hours, but eliminating time wasted around T5. Instant competitiveness. How can the union argue with that, if it can be achieved with no compulsory redundancy at all...?

That covers the market rate aspect of your discussion, but what it does not cover is the comparison to other groups in the company, in the absence of any seniority profile or adjustment for recruitment and retirement trends.

To simply say - well there is recruitment and retirement in cabin crew - is facile: unless is exactly matches that for other employee groups, the comparison is meaningless.

Simple example (without a diversion for f40 to edit) - flight crew have not recruited true sponsored cadets since 2001. That low-cost element of the workforce has therefore been absent for 10 years, while the remaining workforce has aged.

Similarly, I would expect the CC figures to fall this year to some extent as 1,000 largely senior crew left under VR. Flight crew have not seen that exit.

Finally, other crew relates to 12 individuals per the CAA data. That is a completely statistically incomparable figure as a result - why bother to include it unless you are doing nothing other than using it as a rabble-rousing spreadsheet dressed up as true analysis, when everyone else who looks at it thinks the same way that we are all describing now.