British Airways vs. BASSA (current Airline Staff Only)

[ranger07]

Hand Solo re BHX01

bhx01 - I do not believe for one moment you have 'backed BA' and are now regretting your actions. The tone and content of your posts are identical to the BASSA missives your leaders write, heavy on misguided trust in BA and shame at your behaviour, with a dig at the pilots to boot. I'll grant you your a sophisticated phoney, but a phoney nonetheless.

Thankyou Hand Solo, I was just about to post a similar interpretation.
Very D.H/BASSA like approach to woo albeit in a more moderate manner.

[The Blu Riband]

Very D.H/BASSA like approach

He should spend his time looking for work rather than stirring up his ex-colleagues.

Is he still being paid by Bassa?

Is he entitled to continue to represent BA cabin crew?

[bhx01]

If you read my posts again, I actually have a dig at everyone,not one individual or group. maybe I should have stayed silent and watch both groups congratulate themselves on how well they have done. I am not the false one but the ones who do not know what they are voting for, whether it be a yes or a no.

I do feel that if you post something that is not on the straight and narrow you get called a phoney. Like many others, the longer the dispute goes on the more questions crew may ask, some may be pro some against..

My quotes are no way as bad as , CREWFORUM and BALPA forums as I have access to the above and have been observing them.

Is there a innocent party involved, I don't think so hence my quote about the pilots BA and the union. They are in it for themselves. But who serves me the best, hard to say.Most likely the union after all they are crew like me. Never mind what anyone thinks I have been truthful to myself when I went into work and If I decide to strike..

[PC767]

Blimey!

Juan, a touch sensitive over the matter I would say. I'm fully aware of the OED meaning of rhetoric. I wasn't trying to insult you at all. With that I'll happily move on.

Hand, thank you for the clarification I sought. Your origin post has gone, perhaps because its tone was somewhat superfluous.

BHX01, When faced with the reality of real people opening their hearts and telling it how they see it, and how it affects them, it seems the hardliners on this site have no answer other than to claim, 'you must be DH'. As fast as you are questioning your belief in BA management, I'm questioning the adage that the rest of BA wants to look after itself and push the cost onto cabin crew. Well bloody well done everyone else, whilst the heat stays on the cabin crew, the rest can breathe easy that more will not be required of them. Yet.

This, despite what Walsh & Co claim, has so clearly become a union busting exercise. Everybody from acedemics to the hardliners on here can see that. The problem is, by striking BASSA play straight into the turned poachers trap.

[Newyorker001]

Im sorry but how many times do the crew have to be told... WE HAVE ALL MADE OUR COST SAVINGS !!! Come to any other department for a day and they will be able to tell you what life was like 1,2 or 5 years ago and its a very different enviromet. Dont you just get thats why everyone else in the company is so hacked off with the... we are poor cabin crew, stop picking on us, its always us the company picks on.. Everyone I know has finally had it with BASSA and its sheep. Slowly following behind bleeting away... Not taking any notice of what has been going on around them for the past few years.

Im sorry yes this post will come across as nasty or however you want to take it, but Im fed up with the mentality of me me me ... oh and what about me. Wake up smell the coffee and look around and see what is happening not just within BA. Ask anyone nicely within BA, go on even venture into Waterside and you find departments that yes were run years ago like the civil service. Now they are modern and manageged very well. Its a changing world, if you dont like it move on.

I will happily stand up and make sure that a small minority of staff do not bring this company down. Staff who are stuck in some time warp and see thier job as a lifestyle choice rather than somewhere where you come to work do the best you can on every shift and even possibly be slightly flexible.

Ive said it before and the above probably shows that I now have little time or patience for crew who are now still of the opinion that WW is out to get them. He is not, he could not care to him its not personal. Unlike BASSA who at every point have tried to make it as personal as possible. He is a CEO we needed 10 years ago rather than someone who would not stand up to BASSA and let the rot set in.

BASSA have had ample time and warnings to sort this out. they have misled and lied to thier membership. Anyone who can believe some of the things that have been said by BASSA reps is completely mad. We used to have a CC BASSA memmber live with us, it was constant the amount of bull**** she was fed about WW, Waterside,Pilots, Other departments and she swallowed the lot. It used to wind me up so much, that a bright,friendly,intelligent lady would believe half of what was being said to her. She was excellent at her Job, but mention the word BASSA and just watch the lady explode into a series of lies and resentment towards BA. WHY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If anyone thinks that Keith williams is more liberal than WW, please dont hold your breath. He will be brought in to carry on the Job WW has done. As unltimately WW will still be his boss.

BASSA and its followers have a lot to answer for. As Ive said before If I was having to make the kind of decision that the crew have just made, I would not be getting my information from a Union that has been proven to blatantly Lie when it wants.

Can crew actually make thier minds up what this dispute os about !! As now its about staff travel. Oh sorry the fact that the offer is a lot worse than you were offered a while ago seems to have been forgotten..

As far as I can see there needs to be a change in the way some crew view thier role. Its a job, not the lifestlye choice that it was 20 years ago. Grow up and join the real world like the rest of us in BA

[Spanner in the works]

the rest can breathe easy that more will not be required of them. Yet

But you haven't given ANYTHING - yet.
Don't try and pin this as a battle for all BA. We've had our cuts. People, no pay rises, no bonus (a lot of us get bonuses in lieu of OT so our hourly rates have gone down cos the workload has also gone up), restructuring two or three times.
And more....

[Caribbean Boy]

PC767 wrote:

This, despite what Walsh & Co claim, has so clearly become a union busting exercise. Everybody from acedemics to the hardliners on here can see that.

Why should a union-buster have spent so much time negotiating with Unite. Even Unite has said that they have been in "deep negotiations" with BA.

[ranger07]

PC767

Well bloody well done everyone else, whilst the heat stays on the cabin crew, the rest can breathe easy that more will not be required of them.

I'm all 'typed out' on this...over and over again!!!

Please see the above posts from newyorker001 and spannerintheworks.

To summarise...we have done our bit..and continue to do so...we have done our bit over the past few years...and will continue to do so in the future.

Now...it's your turn, the difference being, you have guarantees..we do not!

[Spanner in the works]

I think I'm gonna pack it in too.

Round and round we go.

We want "guarantees".
- None of the rest of us have guarantees. Never have, never will

I don't trust Mgt
- What have they done that they said they wouldn't? (and don't try and spin "Project Columbus" as the terms of NF were nowhere near current proposed levels IF the union had negotiated on the original offers)

The company are not in the poo. WW earns huge money.
- Check the annual results.
- Compared to you and me, yes he does. Compared to other CEOs, no he doesn't.

You'll be next.
- We were first. Lots of times. Been there, seen it, done it and bought the lanyard.

Previously quoted I'm sure:
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein.



What do you actually want?

[LD12986]

On the claim of union busting, WW has made it clear that BA needs unions to be able to negotiate changes with the workforce. If you look at WW's track record at BA (rather than digging up old quotes from years ago - who hasn't said things in the past they would be embarrassed by now?) lots has been achieved through negotiations with the unions behind closed doors without all hell breaking loose.

BASSA is the sole exception. What WW has made it clear that Unite needs to change how BASSA operates.

With Mixed Fleet on the horizon, what CC desperately need is intelligent leadership that works with the company rather than the current mantra of "the company is the enemy" and "everybody is against us".

[Colonel White]

Slidebustle, you said

We do have assurances - but what people want is more watertight agreements to ensure that they CANNOT transfer all the high earning routes like that.

Also this redeployment agreement people go on about, having read up on it abit more, why are they introducing it??? It means that because the job descriptions on Mixed Fleet (especially for CSM) are different that they could in the future say our fleets are redundant take Mixed Fleet or leave.

So let me get this straight. If the world economy changed and let's say that as destinations go Japan became as popular as the proverbial fart in an elevator. You would take BA to task if they then dropped NRT as a route ? Or they decided that NRT was so unprofitable that they only way they could make it viable was by using crew on a lower salary, maybe LGW or NF. The world is not static. Can you not see that in fact BA are being extremely honest with yo by saying that they cannot give watertight assurances, because they don't have the ability to foretell the future to that degree. They want to make promises they have a decent chance of keeping. The only certainties are death and taxes.

As far as different JD and roles go, have a chat with some ground crew who are A7 and did not take APPG. Ask them how secure they feel in their roles. you might also chat to some APPG folk who moved from A7 and find out what their experience is.

Without wishing to be blunt, anyone who says they can guarantee your job is secure and will not change over the next 5 years is either a fool or a liar. I've been with BA for over 20 years. The role I do now is light years away from what I started doing and I'm still in the same department. The view I take is that change is inevitable, you can expend huge amounts of energy attempting to resist it, the wiser line is to accept it and see it as an opportunity to shape your own destiny.

[PC767]

Caribbean Boy,

Hook, line and sinker. He's going through the motions, it is carefully and cleverly orchestrated. Over 2 years ago we learnt, via a dubious leak, of New Fleet in the name of Op Colombus. This must have been sometime in the planning stages, indeed it came out not long after BA made its record 10% profit margin, suggesting that whilst the going was good Walsh & Co were looking to fundamentally change the structure of IFCE, (or whatever we were called then.)

Of course it was denied many times by the then head of IFCE, (or whatever...), Simon Tallin Smith. He suggested ideas were always being discussed but rarely put into action.

And here we are today, Op Colombus = Mixed Fleet, and initially bigger than the company hoped for. Do I blame BASSA as well, (because all replys will state this was all BASSA and only BASSAs fault), yes I do. They were incapable of spotting the game plan, and kept tripping into traps. I told them, though I am insignificant so not listened to, and voted no to strike action.

I often remind my colleagues, who have been whipped into a frenzie, that you do not become CEO of a company such as BA by being stupid and taking chances.

Other departments have taken a hit, but nothing like the type of hit Walsh has in mind for me. So the game is, he demands he want 200%, the unions naturally decline and offer 50%, he retorts with 150%, they suggest 100% and at some stage they meet in the middle and a compromise is accepted which benefits both sides. However Walsh went from 200% to 250% with punishment if challenged.

And being a clever man he always had the answer that made him sound reasonable, he always positioned himself to look like the reasonable party. He is bloody good. What do we have, well when Unite argue for me on TV I cringe. Woodley & Co do not look out of place debating the finer points of being a steel worker or docker, but I'm part of middle England.

Caribbean Boy, from my position it is all transparent, in the future, when the dust has settled, it will be transparent. By then of course Walsh will have altered the style of industrial relations. Many blame BASSA for going backwards but I'd suggest they only responded (unfortunately) to the regression of Walsh's style. Its started already, disgruntled railworks and BT staff have had Walsh style tactics thrush upon their ballots. And of course there is the issue of punishing workers for taking up their legal rights.

This has to have an impact on any workers future with regards to industrial action. And also for management tactics. BA cabin crew will not win, the best deal may now be on the table, I'll look at the small print when it arrives, but our loss will set a precedent. Until of course the EU brings UK legislation into compatability. Until then I hope you never face any more demands from the top corridor.

[PC767]

LD12986.

Is that why BA require unionised crew to resign from their union before accepting the current deal.

Is that why crew who are considering the latest deal are being told that if they undertake industrial action ever again they would lose parts of the agreement, thus rendering union membership totally ineffective. A bit like the PCCC.

[PC767]

Col White,

Your role may be light years away from how it was 20 years ago, but have your earnings been decimated to where they were 20 years ago? Thats what crew are concerned about.

[Dick Spanner]

Well said newyorker001.
But if anyone thinks that Keith williams is more liberal than WW, please dont hold your breath. He will be brought in to carry on the Job WW has done.
KW is a bean counter, he will potentially be much worse then WW, a pilot, someone who has an idea how an airline operates, better the devil you know I feel.

[LD12986]

Is that why BA require unionised crew to resign from their union before accepting the current deal.

The latest offer on the table is only available for crew members to accept on an individual basis if they were not members of the union at the time the offer was made. This was made clear in the message from Bill Francis. Otherwise the company could be deemed to be offering an inducement to leave the union, which could result in a legal challenge.

Is that why crew who are considering the latest deal are being told that if they undertake industrial action ever again they would lose parts of the agreement, thus rendering union membership totally ineffective. A bit like the PCCC.

The company has always made clear that the cost of any IA would be recovered from the offending department, hence why each offer is worse than the previous one.

The company has made this clear all along, pity too many people had their fingers in their ears at the time, and decided it was worth betting the farm on imposition of changes to crewing levels. The days when the company could afford to just absorb a £150m hit are long gone.

You (through your representatives) decided to pick this fight. You gave them the mandate to do so. Now you are paying for it. The work of other departments in contributing savings (£300m+ in the last financial year) should not be undone you and your colleagues.

Welcome to the real world.

[Newyorker001]

PC767

If WW is so bad and wants to break the union, why has he been able to negotiate with other departments that also represented by unite ?

[midman]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Hostie

Here’s his (Bill Francis' answer
'the redeployment agreement is one of our corporate policies that affects all employees in BA. In the offer it confirms that discussions need to continue at the BA Forum and EPC and come to a conclusion within a month. They started back in June'09.

Until that time I think it would be inappropriate to comment, to give them the best chance of progress'.

I don't feel reassured at all by that answer!

You may not feel reassured by that answer, but it's the same answer that the rest of us got when we questioned the new redeployment agreement.. The company have had to reassess their commitments in the agreements with employee groups, and in order to demonstrate to the markets that the cost base is manageable, they have reduced the redeployment agreement to 52 weeks. (Remember they have a contractual limit of only three months notice for the vast majority of us)

Bassa try to spin that as a direct attack on cabin crew and as further justification for IA. Clever opportunism, I grant you, but no more closer to reality than any Bassa fiction we've seen in recent months.

[Hotel Mode]

So the game is, he demands he want 200%, the unions naturally decline and offer 50%, he retorts with 150%, they suggest 100% and at some stage they meet in the middle and a compromise is accepted which benefits both sides. However Walsh went from 200% to 250% with punishment if challenged.

It was made clear to all the departments that the amount was not for negotiation only the means of delivery. ALL other depts made their savings or significant progress in negotiations by 30th June 2009. Except one.

This was because all other depts understood what was meant when BA said the amount was not up for negotiation. Except one.

Every department negotiated the most painless way to meet the cuts by the deadline so that BA didn't do what they promised and imposed their method. Except one.

They also understood what was meant when all departments were told they would have a revised figure if the deadline wasn't met. Except one.

Finally they understood what was meant when they were told that any costs of industrial action would be added to departmental savings. Except one.

So one year on and they still don't get it.

[PC767]

NewYorker,

You miss the point, the concern of crew is that 2-3 years down the line redeployment will start a year long process of taking their salary back, perhaps not 20 years, but substantially backwards. My point to Col White was, despite the changes in his job over 20 years, has his pay declined to a point almost 20 years previous. I'd safely say no. Is there a real chance this could happen whilst he stays in his current role, or anyone else for that matter. I'd say no.

LD....,

So if you wholeheartedly support Walsh's concept that the first deal offered will always be the best, and should you choose to challenge him, he'll definately make subsequent deals worse, where does that leave you when Walsh, or his successor, comes back and asks you for a new deal, worse than your current deal. Do you just role over and accept without question.