British Airways - CC Industrial Relations Mk VI

[Tiramisu]

Lies and more lies from BASSA's latest update.

According to BASSA's latest updates there are reports of no food on inbound flights from Germany and Italy and the quality of food is poor.

This is complete and utter fabrication. I operated my flight to one of these countries where I am at present and the food was of the same expected BA standard. Everything was on board with no shortages or discrepancies. Infact in Club Europe we were so over catered with some excellent food and this was also the case for the inbound flight! FACT!
There was enough food on board to feed an army and this was the same for the crew meals, 16 trays for 10 crew which includes both outbound and inbound crew.

BA have looked after customers and staff in the best possible way.

[Jadzia]

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.

No transits today. Everyone on a link after a nightstop was sent home after arrival on the inbound sector. Those people were not included in the figures, only those crew members reporting for a flying, standby or ground duty.

[STS]

If this 50% figure is accurate, then it will be interesting to see how this unfolds over the next days/week as more crews are due to report. It's entirely possible that more could be persuaded to go into work as they are seeing a significant number of their colleagues already doing so.

Apart from the inconsistencies in Unite's press releases that are being flagged up by posters here - I would like to ask anyone from Unite/BASSA to comment on how seemingly random numbers such as the "around 113 BA passengers had complained about the poor quality of food on-board the flights" are being collated. How do you have access to the information that quickly and why is it so vague? Honestly...I think 113 people complaining about food on any given day may well be par for the course considering people moan about the smallest thing these days. That aside, it does read more like a propaganda piece to rally the troops - and that's fine, the union is obviously in the business of doing that. But I'm certainly not accepting it as a factual statement, based on the vagueness and what people who are in the places mentioned are reporting. Trouble is, if it's being handed out at the picket lines and nobody has the opportunity to question it...

[oldflyboy]

Balance.

Given that we have had several posts with numbers of aircraft deployed away from LHR that are contrary to the Unite message of 20 at Cardiff/Shannon, has anyone currently operating or from IFCE seen any counter information from the company to refute the various false statements from Unite? Or do we think BA are not getting into the 'he said she said, no you didn't, yes you did' battle?

[cym]

facts are facts - pics timestamped are all thats needed! Btw there arent 20 spare stands at CWL even at this time of year

Unite made the claim........... media if you report it, validate it - easy as

[320 driver]

One point that is often forgotten with regard to unfair dismissal in a strike:

If you are sacked within 12 weeks then you can claim unfair dismissal. But what does that mean? A tribunal can find that you were unfairly dismissed and award you compensation which is very limited (dont have the exact figures to hand). They CANNOT force the employer to reinstate you. So, the company can dismiss you, take a relatively modest hit in giving you statutory compensation and then still leave you jobless.

Basically, if the employer wants to play hardball, the protections under IA law aren't worth very much at all.

[binsleepen]

According to the BA website British Airways - Investor Relations - Fleet / Product in March 2009 (latest figures) BA had 245 ac in the fleet. This includes the aircraft based at Gatwick, London City and Open Skies.

If you believe BASSA

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;

ie there is a total of 125 parked up.

This is over 50% of fleet yet London City is working normally and Gatwick almost normally with LHR flying 50% at least, the figures just don't add up.

Regards

[AlphaFlower]

Anyone in doubt about the robustness of BA's programme this evening may be encouraged by the fact that there were only five longhaul cancellations after 1700 today all of which departed empty to ensure the return flight runs to plan.

Tomorrow's shorthaul operation looks pretty robust too.

[wiggy]

cym

Unite made the claim........... media if you report it, validate it

Absolutely. Both The Times and BBC are glibly repeating the 20 aircraft at CWL story...I'd have thought it would have been very easy to send their local reporters down to do a bit of plane counting but I guess it's too much bother.

[TightSlot]

Thanks

Our thanks to you all for managing by and large to keep this thread on track during a difficult and complicated day. The number of mod interventions has steadily decreased throughout the day as the thread has started to contain more useful information from those actually involved in events, rather than the SLF/Shareholder dross that was making life difficult previously - most of these are either now thread-banned, or have been siphoned off into the Pax/SLF forum where a thread exists to enable the customer perspective to be displayed (worth a look occasionally for all those involved, to ensure that balance is retained).

One word of advice - Beware the Troll! Earlier today, an inflammatory post was made, designed to elicit an angry response - a few of you rose to the bait. Should this happen again (it will) just use the 'Report Post' button (small warning triangle bottom left of each post) and the mods will get around to deleting it and banning as appropriate. Try not to get wound up by an obviously inflammatory post - doing so just feeds the Troll.

Otherwise, once again - thanks to all. Now... Tomorrow is another day.

[Stoic]

Sunday media

Either Sky or the BBC (I forget which) opined earlier that if the first day of the strike had been a tennis match, the score at the end of today is BA 1 - Unite 0. Perhaps the Sunday media will declare a straight set win for BA. If that is the case, it will be great news for employees and pensioners who all depend on the robust survival of BA for their future pension entitlements to be paid in full.

[617sqn]

cc thread

Tightslot
Thank you for your recent post.I think that this thread should be primarily for BA cc and then BA employees.
I did start a discussion on this a few months ago but it got deleted.
I would love to be able to discuss issues with my fellow workers and to get a good debate.

[Human Factor]

Given that this "20 aircraft at Cardiff" story keeps recurring and is known to be false, any chance someone could get down to CWL tomorrow morning and photograph the "20 aircraft", post it here and mail a copy to Sky and the Beeb?

You should see two 747-400s in storage and five 777s in heavy maintenance.

[im1234]

The Telegraph just posted this story
Unite planned international sympathy action before result of BA strike vote was known - Telegraph

Not sure if I believe it, or it's just standard inter-union meetings getting mis-reported.

Not seen it elsewhere either.

[swalesboy]

What you will see at Cardiff is NLB and NLC parked up, a 747 parked on the NIF which is in for a Prime Mod. The remaining three aircraft, a 777 and two 747's are tucked away in the hangar having D checks carried out on them.

Can we move on from this now.

Trust me on the above. If anyone still doesn't believe me, I will take a pic and post it tomorrow.

[SlideBustle]

Well to all those of you who have gone to work I say power to you! (Notably Tiramisu and TorC who has posted about the experience!)

That's terrible Tiramisu though about that Purser and her crew, but end of the day if she is like that they have a problem if they can't respect we all have different decisions. This decision (striking or not striking) has probably been one of the most difficuly decisions I've made - no joke! I am really against the strike (hence voting No) but obviously some of the bullying posts on BASSA and some of the way people talk about being the ''s'' word - I was getting literally terrified! Now I am not so scared of going in so I shall! Thanks both for your reports (havent read the whole thread since I last posted as lots of pages so sorry if I missed any other ''workers'' out!)

I am quite concerned though about this talk of Bill saying about CR - and quite angry actually at Unite because BAs proposals have been all about protecting us from a compulsary paycut (for now at least) and CR which are the two things I would worry about the most - and now there is talk of CR because of the strike - all because of UNITE. And any future proposal from BA is going to be worse than last weeks IMO as we will have to recover that. Obviously quite worried about that. Thanks Unite!

Obviously strikers I'm not bashing individuals. Some posters here who are on the other side (Eddy) have shown a rational and mature approach. Nothing has been an easy decision and we (crew) have all been caught up in this power struggle. Horrible!

Anyway good luck everyone over the next 2 days - whatever you choose to do!

SlideBustle

[Mkat]

Slidebustle
Good on you that you have made the decision to go in! I was at CRC today and I can assure you will definitely not be alone. If you have any remaining doubts remember that there will be loads of volunteer staff to support and that 52% of the cabin crew who were rostered to go to work today at Heathrow reported for work (and 97% at LGW). Many texted and phoned their colleagues from CRC to tell them it was OK to come in . So there will be others like you who have gained confidence to go in tomorrow and on Monday, which should mean that unlike in 1997 YOU will be the majority on board after the strike, so the bullies' threats are a little empty.
And rather than worrying about the possibility of CR, think that the best thing you can do to prevent that is to help BA stem the losses by working normally!

[SlideBustle]

If it is indeed true that some reps have gone sick (I know it is a rumour but it wouldn't surprise me from some of them!) then I hope they are first in the firing line if there was CR. I know that sounds harsh but THEY have led us to this, they have put all of us crew in this position should we strike, should we not (I suppose you could say we did because of ballot result but in all fairness the reps have whipped crew in a frenzy for months with the ''The end of your job as you know it'' rhetoric which has led the more naive down this trap!)

IF it is true I think that is terrible!

[Hannah1974]

Just wanted to say..

I just wanted to say how proud I was today of the Gatwick team - what a turn out and what support for our business, of all our Heathrow and gatwick crews who came to work - not an easy decision for many to make, of our International crew who are staying away from home for extended periods to back BA and all the volunteers on the ground and in the air, helping to keep this airline flying, our flight crew colleagues for all their support and every other colleague both behind and infront of the scenes who made today happen.

On such a sad day for our business, it's a great thing to be able to walk away with such pride and having witnessed such camaraderie, determination and loyalty.

Thank you all.

Here's to tomorrow and all our tomorrows.

[Litebulbs]

To all crew, I it must have been a terrible choice that you made and you have made that choice, so well done. If you fundamentally disagree with the action and you forfilled your contractual obligations, then I salute you.

If you stood by the union and withdrew your labour, then that is a position to be respected too.

This may seem a 'sit in the fence" answer, but I was not sitting at home making that decision on how my life will be.

Either choice is brave.