BA CC industrial relations (current airline staff only)

[P-T-Gamekeeper]

So really BASSA are saying:

"We have been told we have to reccommend this offer to you, so we are, even though we don't want to, dont like it, and would really like you to vote against it, but can't say so"

Not really a ringing endorsement, is it?

I wonder if any reps are criticising the offer on the other forums?

[malcolmf]

Fair enough, as you say a massive step forward at last. Hopefully we can all move on now.

[From Tunbridge Wells]

Hope so - Unite seemed to have realised that it's a good deal.

[Desk Jocky]

Hope so - Unite seemed to have realised that it's a good deal.

I fear rather than being just a good deal, it is the only deal, and if BASSA cannot see that, then there really isn't any hope.

[24-06]

Caribbean Boy "No. MF is coming in as part of the move towards a permanent reduction in cabin crew costs, which are the highest of all UK airlines".

Thus taking BA into the realms of becoming an exploitative cabin crew employer (look at the MF conditions not just the money) with, in future I predict, a transient cabin crew workforce!

[upperdeckpsr]

LicenceToFly

BA are paying MF market rate +10%, so why do people think that the new recruits are going to be below the poverty line, when Easy, flybe & Ryanair all seem to manage to crew their aircraft.

It's quite simple really, non of the airlines you have quoted are based in London, to operate on MF you need to be within a fairly close proximity of London - the average wage in London is £32,604 per annum and £26,728 in the South East.

[Juan Tugoh]

upperdeckpsr

No one is being forced to take these jobs. You should be happy that MF will fail as no-one could possibly survive on these low wages. As ever the proof of this will happen soon enough, if MF poses too many people or cannot attract enough staff then BA will be forced to increase the wages for MF. Why this should bother a BASSA member on an old contract is beyond me, BASSA LHR have a long history of selling other bases contracts down the river to protect themselves in the past, why is this situation any different?

[Yellow Pen]

It's quite simple really, non of the airlines you have quoted are based in London, to operate on MF you need to be within a fairly close proximity of London - the average wage in London is £32,604 per annum and £26,728 in the South East.

Is Gatwick not close to London? Is Luton not close to London? Crew often make the false assumption that Heathrow is in London and crew working from Heathrow must live in London. They don't, and there are plenty of affordable places to live within an hours comfortable drive of Heathrow.

[upperdeckpsr]

Yellow Pen

Is Gatwick not close to London? Is Luton not close to London? Crew often make the false assumption that Heathrow is in London and crew working from Heathrow must live in London. They don't, and there are plenty of affordable places to live within an hours comfortable drive of Heathrow.

So by your analogy - you are saying that MF crew need a car and live up to an hour's 'comfortable' drive away.

So those MF crew will need to purchase or lease a car (monthly cost), insure it (monthly cost), tax it (monthly cost), service it (monthly cost), and last but not least afford to put petrol in it to get to work.

The average cost of car insurance alone in the UK is now over £1000 per annum - thats almost a monthly take home wage on MF. And according to the AA the average cost of car ownership is around £4000 per annum - so by your reckoning almost a third of a MF crew members take home pay will go on getting to and from work

[Yellow Pen]

Yes, just like the rest of society! Let's be clear here: it's not BA's responsibility to afford their crew a nice car and their own flat in a crew preferred suburb such as Richmond, Chiswick, Kew, etc. Just because they have in the past it doesn't mean they are obliged to in the future. One look at the trains or roads into London at 8am will reveal to you that most of the people who work in London don't live there, let alone those who work on the outskirts of the city. If you need a car to get to the job you want to do you have to buy one, or move closer, or buy a train season ticket. That's the way it is in the real world, it's called personal investment in your career. If you are not prepared to do that then find a different, more convenient job. That is the way the real world works outside BA. If people cannot afford to do the job they won't.

PS Do you have a source for that average cost of car insurance? Nobody I know is paying anything like that except for under 25 males.

[upperdeckpsr]

Let's be clear here: it's not BA's responsibility to afford their crew a nice car and their own flat in a crew preferred suburb such as Richmond, Chiswick, Kew, etc. Just because they have in the past it doesn't mean they are obliged to in the future.

What on earth are you on about?

PS Do you have a source for that average cost of car insurance? Nobody I know is paying anything like that except for under 25 males.

Of course I do - and by the way, who are we recruiting onto MF, under 25 year olds???

Motoring Costs : British Insurance Premium Index - The AA

[Yellow Pen]

Perhaps you should have read further down the article then?

The quarterly index shows that the average "shoparound" premium – based on the three lowest quotes for a customer, which most closely resembles what buyers actually pay – accelerated steadily over the year, adding more than 22% to the typical comprehensive quote over the past 12 months. It ended the year at £613.

It seems new fleet is suddenly £387 more affordable. Your assumption that new fleet is recruiting under 25 males is just that - an assumption. Along with your assumption that they'll need to buy a car, and that it will cost them £1000 p.a. to insure. You are complaining that new fleet cannot afford a champagne lifestyle on lemonade wages. The answer is to live a lemonade lifestyle.

PS As you have quoted the average wage in London, compare that to the average semi-skilled labour wage in London here:

Semi Skilled Labourer Average Salary

[MissM]

Or Staines. Or Slough. Or Woking. Or somewhere with National Express. You are too London-centric in your thinking.

Some of those areas are not exactly cheap.

MF crew would have to live fairly close to LHR as they will be operating both long and shorthaul trips and sometimes to scheme with minimum rest between flights. Some temporary crew at LHR, on MF terms and conditions, have even spent a couple of nights at the airport because it's not been financially feasible for them to go home as they would lose out.

Sounds very nice.

[Yellow Pen]

No, a semi-skilled labourer is one who does semi-skilled labour. Doesn't have to be on a building site and nothing on that link says it is. Perhaps it would offend your sensibilities less if I called it a semi-skilled worker? Makes no difference to the results, however you are attempting to turn this into a BASSA forum style debate by endless nit-picking and pedantry. The broad thrust of the statistics are there to see and scratching around the edges with wordplay doesn't deflect it.

MissM - there are plenty of Eurofleet crew who live a long way from LHR too. I have commuted to LHR from a long distance whilst flying short haul, sometimes on minimum rest between trips. I've stayed down at B&Bs because it wasn't worth going home, I've driven home so I could a have 7 hours in my own bed (minimum rest at base is 12 hours you know!) EF crew aren't anything special in that respect. Once MF is established they won't be reporting daily at LHR so the drive is less of a grind, and they'll be reporting on fewer days a week than your average office worker who may very well spend 30-60 minutes driving each direction every working day.

[swalesboy]

This whole debate is ludicrous. If you can't afford to survive on MF wages, don't apply. When I accepted my job as an engineer for BA, they told me how much I would be paid, and every month, that's what I get paid. Nobody lied to me or made me take the job.

This smacks of a blatant attempt to rubbish MF and put people off from applying. If anybody on this forum is thinking of applying, read and digest the offer for yourself and decide if it's for you. Simple.

[Scapa]

Salary on MF

Right,

This is an extract from the BA recruitment web site:

Reward package £17,000 to £20,000 pa includes:

Basic salary
Elapsed Hourly Pay
Performance Related Incentive Reward
Annual leave starting at 30 days pa rising to 34 days pa

So before i get jumped on and told that the small print is what matters, i believe the Basic is around 11k so the remainder is made up of the duty pay roughly 2.40 per hour. I imagine BA assume this would take you up to the 17k and the remaining 3k is the 'Performance Related Incentive Reward'. The Elapsed Hourly Pay will be taxed at a preferential rate as are all expenses based payments. The closest for comparison in BA is the pilots hourly rate, which is taxed at 79% tax free and 21% taxed. So 4,740 tax free 1260 taxed.

So Taxed income = 11,000 + 1,260 = 12260 per year
Tax free = 4740 per year = 395 per month

Using The Salary Calculator - Take-Home tax calculator Taxed income gives a take home of 894.07, if you now add on the tax free element this gives a total take home of 1289.07.

So anyone else in another industry, to take home 1289 per month has to earn 19,641. (using the reverse tool on the above website)

Even without the potential to earn an extra 3k in bonuses were not really talking about a bread line salary are we?

I'm not having a go at current crew, all i'm trying to establish is that the salary is not that bad and at least matches if not exceed other crew salaries from other airlines.

The bottom line as has been stated in previous posts is that if people can get better income elsewhere then MF will have to up its wages, otherwise it is well placed in the industry, market forces.

[swalesboy]

Have any schedules been put in place yet for these ballots?

[Neptunus Rex]

Plenty of good value B & Bs in the Hounslow area. "Bend it like Beckham?"

[Juud]

Referring to "market forces" seems so logical and fair.
Yet everybody with even the slightest knowledge of airline crew Ts&Cs knows that we are in a world-wide race to the bottom.
Dictated by those same market forces.

A good union manages to slow down that race by carefully negotiating the best possible Ts&Cs for both existing and future crew members.
A good CEO tries to guarantee a return for the shareholders, a future for the company and thus future employment, and Ts&Cs reflecting the value placed on the company employees.

Looking at the current BA dispute, it seems that both parties have miserably failed to fulfill their respective tasks, and blame for the resulting shambles can be firmly placed in both camps.

Still and all, pointing to the CC Ts&Cs of low cost airlines as an example is completely besides the point in this dispute.
BA is not Scum Airlines, its CC are not the slave labourers employed by Scum Airlines, nor does anybody here presumably wish them to be.

Market forces play their role, but like the current economic crisis demonstrates, unchecked market forces are a dangerous beast.

[Chigley]

I agree with Scapa, a take home pay of nearly £1,300 is hardly living on the bread line. I think the new fleet lifestyle will probably attract a younger audience anyway and this salary is a pretty good one and far better that I was on in my first jobs. People seem to be comparing this salary with their current lifestyles and seeing that it would be impossible to live, which even for myself would be the same. However, I have a mortgage and other commitments that I afford on my current pay - we all live within our means and that is exactly what our colleagues on MF will do.

Besides, all the people critising the poor salary for MF are the same ones that supported a union that was only too happy to expect our LGW colleagues to take a 3% pay cut in their proposal so that LHR could benefit.