British Airways - CC Industrial Relations Mk VI

[Melissa1510]

Who went on strike?

Judging from the interviews released to Sky News earlier from TU reps, it is clear that they have no idea of who many crew actually did not turn up for work today. The journalist asked the question 3 times and not answer was given. How they are going to pay these who supported the strike is anyones guess...

Well.. relaxing now and look forward to turn up for my next shift in CRC on Monday night after my day work in WTS.

[Tiramisu]

Melissa,
Thanks for all you did in CRC today. The volunteers making it safe for us to report to work from the time I drove in to the car park were terrific.
To me today reflects the true spirit of BA, everyone pulling together from all departments of the airline for the benefit of our customers and BA.

I'm not too worried about intimidation. I've have been flying for 26 years with BA and this is the third strike I've been through having seen it all before. It's my crew I was concerned about.
I think the inbound crew were gutted to be honest, as they had to operate back from Europe losing out on allowances and having to strike on their return. Perhaps they wanted the easy option of another night in Europe in a 5 star hotel! Shame on them.

Eddy, good post. Thank you.

[malcolmf]

I know of 5 747 at CWL and 6 in the desert in California.
This lie (if it is one) should be easy to prove, CWL and SNN are pretty small and it would be hard to hide 20 aircraft there.


I dont know what you are getting at, the facts that matter are the number of staff turning up for work, which seems to be in excess of 60% on the first day

What I am getting at is that apparently Unite will say anything in order to "prove" how successful the strike is. This is something that is easily verifiable as a lie.

[Rushed Approach]

From the DTI Guidelines and which must be printed in full on the ballot paper:


“If you take part in a strike or other industrial action, you may be in breach of your contract of employment. However, if you are dismissed for taking part in strike or other industrial action which is called officially and is otherwise lawful, the dismissal will be unfair if it takes place fewer than twelve weeks after you started taking part in the action, and depending on the circumstances may be unfair if it takes place later.”

A company does not have to pay workers who are in breach of contract, which is why some unions pay strike pay. A standard tactic is to suspend the worker pending an investigation for the breach. This is why IA is disproportionately unfair on those who happened to be rostered to work on strike days, even if the strike had 100% support.

As to whether it is illegal to discriminate against those who take strike action I do not believe this is true (although they have some limited protection from dismissal as above). It IS illegal to discriminate on the grounds of race, sex age or religion in terms of pay (but not concessions such as staff travel), but not on other grounds. Even if dismissal is illegal, lack of promotion, demotion and unfavourable rostering certainly isn't!

It would be interesting to know the legal side of suspension without pay - of course even with basic pay the drop in allowances sat at home would be substantial.

[gas path]

Those a/c stood down at CWL (Cardiff) and VCV (Victorville) were stood down months before the dispute as they are now no longer required.

[cym]

CWL

Know the place very well.

Unite have offices in Cardiff, lets see the photographic evidence?!! I mean CWL is such a huge airport you can easily hide 20 wide bodied jets - not!

Google cardiff stathan blog - its a local spotters site with updates provided by members that actually work there, shows the reg and date of arrival of every aircraft at BAMC. Or are they also in the pay of BA and exisit to lie and undermine the truth?

Please Unite if ur going to bulls*t at least make it remotely credibile and not so easily proved to be incorrect.

Dont you have morals feeding such rubbish to your cannon fodder? Silly question - we all know the answer!!!!!

[hunterboy]

I passed through CRC this morning, and it certainly seemed busy.
I was surprised to see virtually all CC wearing their name badges and ID cards.
I got the impression that they just wanted to get on with the job.

At the risk of a bit of thread creep, if BA went back to court and could demonstrate that the ballot wasn't 100% kosher ('cos incorrect ballots were sent out or returned), would that mean that the strikers no longer have legal protection from breach of contract and could be dismissed without compensation?
I can't help feeling that BA has something else up its sleeve.

[Mariner9]

I suspect Hunterboy that BA have taken careful legal advice and know exactly where they stand.

And, on the evidence of the last two court cases, BA's legal advice is superior to that provided to Unite....

[swalesboy]

I work at BAMC and I can catagorically tell you that the only two aircraft that are 'Parked up' at BAMC are NLB and NLC which have been there for months.
That is it!!

Anybody from BASSA care to call me a liar??

[Global Warrior]

This thread seems to be developing into a happy one..... those that turned up for work were happy to do so. It only takes one a**shole to turn a great job into a s**t one and it seems that maybe this strike will be beneficial for BA.......... by weeding out those that make the job untenable.

I have 500,000 airmiles..... i'd like to collect more. I think BA's CC are some of the best in the industry but its important to put the industry in perspective. We might not like the way the world is developing, but UNITE/BASSA are not going to change the world. In a 2 horse race, its never good to back the loser.

The world is moving on...... the profession is moving on...... we dont have black and white TV's anymore. When you stop banging your head against a wall......... it stops hurting.

Good luck to all.

GW

[iGareth]

No sign of all these BA a/c at CWL today - onsite today. There were ( i didn't count as I didn't know I would need to!) some there as there usually is. Nothing stood out as unusual.

CWL is tiny and you should be able to seem most of the airport by circling it in the car.

[malcolmf]

From the Unite website:

20th March 2010
With 80 percent of cabin crew standing strong on the first day of the BA stoppage, Unite has issued an update of how the strike is biting so far, which reveals that BA's much-vaunted contingencies plans are failing:

• BA has managed to fly only one third of its normal scheduled departures;
• BA's flagship terminal T5 is a ghost town as passengers stay away;
• The first long haul BA flight out (10am) was to Abu Dhabi and crewed by 6 pilots and 2 international cabin crew;
• From 12.20pm until 2.30pm only 10 flights departed from Heathrow, normally there would be 50 during the same period; of the 10 which left, 8 flights were chartered and only 2 were BA flights;
• By lunchtime today, 85 BA planes were parked at Heathrow - consuming the maximum parking space allowed for BA aircraft;
• 20 more planes had been moved to Cardiff to be parked, and a further 20 flown to Shannon, in western Ireland, to sit out the strike;
• By 2pm, only one flight to JFK airport had departed - normally there are five;
• At Gatwick, one third of flights have failed to take off;
• BA planes are taking off empty, save for cargo, as BA stretches efforts to make it seem it is functioning;
• On average only 14 passengers are travelling on those flights which are taking off, far short of capacity;
• 2 strike-breaking chartered flights did not depart because of technical problems;
• That by mid-morning around 113 BA passengers had complained about the poor quality of food on-board the flights; and
• That there are reports of no food on in-bound flights from Germany and Italy.

[Cyber Bob]

From my vantage point today, I can assure you that there was more BA traffic departing LHR than Unite claim. Wasn't ticking numbers off exactly but flights were leaving on a regular basis, mainy heavy A/C

[Jadzia]

That Unite email is a skillfully twisted piece. Having worked a shift at WTS today, I must say that I'm pleased and proud how well things were going today. Around half of the crew turning up for their duties, crew ringing in to volunteer to operate on flights and everyone successfully pulling together to have a smoothly running, yet reduced operation. On the downside, I had to speak to some rather distressed crew members during the day. Crew in fear of their own colleagues. Bassa members bullying each other into striking, how cynical is that?! All that shouting about BA bully-managers and they're even worse amongst themselves. Do old-contract CSDs and/or well-paid union reps care about loss of staff travel? I think not. Are you entitled to your own opinion and make your own choices? Not according to some union members.. And now this email.

[cheeky chappy]

BA's flagship terminal T5 is a ghost town as passengers stay away

I don't know how they make this rubbish up as on my stroll through T5 today it looked only slightly less busy than usual through the departure lounge. I wished I'd taken pictures now to prove it.

20 more planes had been moved to Cardiff to be parked, and a further 20 flown to Shannon, in western Ireland, to sit out the strike

We know this as utter B/S as there are posts on here from Cardiff workers who confirm that there are no new A/C parked there.

How can anything they put out to the press be believed when there "Facts" are so easily disproved?

[JoseBarahona]

Crews transitting LHR

BA say 50% if LHR crews due to report did so. Unite claim 20%ish. (surely the usual BS)

But does anyone have any stats on shorthaul crews transtting LHR?? Are they manipulated in these figures??

Are BA including crews downroute as reporting?? I hope not.

[vanHorck]

If Jadzia's claim that 50% showed up for work is true, it indicates that 50% were on strike, sick leave or afraid to work.

That makes the win/loose outcome (BA win , Bassa loose) much less clearcut than has been suggested on this forum....

SLF, so Mods feel free to delete if irrelevant

[ranger07]

Heartfelt thanks!

As a senior member of ground staff for BA, I wish to thank all the volunteers and selfless Cabin Crew who ensured the success of our contingency plans today, and again, to those who will do so tomorrow and anytime this sad, sad situ continues.
Those of you who strike have an absolute right to do so. All my time in BA, I and my colleagues have always been subject to ‘change’, and have done so with the times. Recently, our working environment has become stressful but mitigation comes in the shape of working together and pulling together, especially in these very, very difficult times. We are also appreciative of the fact that we have a job. Many, in other companies and Airlines, have not been so fortunate and consequently have lost much, much more.
I say to those strikers, please, please, reflect on what you have and what you will continue to retain.
Yes, of course I have self interest here in the sense that I wish to retain my job and provide for my family, and, hopefully, retain a final salary pension at the end of my career. Please don’t jeopardise this for my colleagues, myself and YOU!
Again, thank you to all those that continue to support OUR AIRLINE.

[malcolmf]

On a normal day BA have 62 stands available at T5 alone and anyone who operates there knows that it is full almost all day, so 85 parked isn't a massive increase.
The TV pictures imply that aircraft are standing idle when in fact they are being serviced and loaded.
All in all I don't think the media have covered themselves in glory.

[cym]

20 aircraft moved to CWL

FFS 3 independant sources have said ' they aint there' in the last 90 mins (also checked by phone with a mate that works there - comment was what???? Unite are living in a parrallel universe.

Sky coverage of today has been shown to be extremely wanting:

Journo(?) luchtime claiming blackedout crew busses were running empty - (xray vision)

Same Jurno(?) just behind me landing is a subbed BA plane - was a schedule non BA flight from HEL

20 x 744's and 777's stored at both CWL and SNN - show us the pics (I know for a fact that none are at CWL)

Questioning the number of BA flights operating for FIDS screens - checked on BAA website - they looked good!

No BA planes taking off over BASSA ground - yup they were using 27 for take off;s

BASSA offered a paycut. No they didnt they wanted to recover any salary sacrifice in yr 3.

And my fav - Malcom (?) who took VR from BA saying how hard that BASSA had tried to settle the dispute and what an evil man WW was! - If he is so lacking in principal why is his opinions of value? If he was a man of honour why did he take the money?

The serious point here is that CC should be able to use the media to gain information and form a considered opinion.

If you fall into that catagory ex colleages my advice is dont use that news channel.