New Challenges, New Dynamics, New Dimensions
 

We are facing the most crippling economic time that has faced the key world economies in at least two generations. There are fundamental reasons that has promoted this unbelievable threat to our day to day existence. A greater influence is our fear and hence the majority reigning in their expenditure. Business is just that, it is business. When I flew as cabin crew I used my job and employer to further my gain in life rewarding experiences and personal development for my CV. Business is not welfare. In tough climates a business has to survive and it is for those entrusted with the executive to motivate the business in a profitable aspect to maintain a level of growth and continuity. Gone are the days of staying with an employer for a lifetime to receive a timepiece on retirement and a pension. We must now reappraise our lifestyles to live within our means and not our false ideals so often flashed through advertisements. I have been through life threatening situations. I have had friends die, some violently. These traumatic experiences have taught me that regardless, if I am able to breathe, love and give joy to my nearest and dearest then nothing else matters.

So a unanimous NO to saving the 82 Million required. A unanimous NO to the creation of the new fleet. A unanimous NO to any further talks about this. A Vote of NO Confidence in Willie and Immediate Ballot for Strike Action should plans still be pushed forward.

Lots of constructive stuff there - so BASSA not sticking fingers in their ears and shouting NO NO NO then?

Guys, Girls tell your reps to go away and try harder than this pitiful 3 weeks of nil attempt at compromise - the posts I have read on the BASSA forum are so disturbing with the "I'd rather see the company fold than accept this" not being in the minority any longer.

Such a shame - I know the BA crew are great but feel they are being led up the Garden Path.

So BASSA says no to negotiations and Willie serves 90 days notice on their contracts. Gonna be another interesting summer.

Ouch,

Termination follows a summer of unrest as the company calls time on contracts and continues to recruit onto the short term, mixed fleet contract underneath.

It will, indeed, be another interesting summer. I feel there will be little sympathy with the CC when the details of these working practices hits the press in the current climate.

I feel there was a bit too much war drum bashing and not enough looking at the critical problem.

To be fair EYXW, the course of events and BASSAs reaction were/are entirely predictable ,you would be naive to expect anything else:rolleyes:

I am told that BASSA are aware there is little chance of stopping the new fleet with industrial action,but from the meeting this afternoon they seem not to make this entirely clear:hmm:

That's why BASSA were frantically trying to limit its (the new fleets)size and scope during negotiations last week:suspect:

Instead its BASSA knows best style of rhetoric along the lines of don't be concerned about the new fleet because no ones going to want to work on it anyway, in this they may be right that of the 1000 people already trained some may kick the idea in touch when they see the T&Cs:sad:

BASSA may now wish to play the long game when they meet with BA on Thursday, but with a resounding NON they are putting the time line firmly back in the hands of BA.

Predictable but, none the less, still frustrating.

I just don't think IA or the threat of it is going to win it for BASSA this time - can CC legally strike over the creation of a new fleet? Are people going to turn their noses up at a wage which although vastly inferior to the current BA one is also above the most visible (Virgin) competitors wages?

I think that it needs to be realised that CHANGE IS GOING TO HAPPEN, and failure to be part of it will just result in the old fleet's demise being quicker.

EYXW

Could the pilots have legally gone on strike over Openskies? I feel that will be the answer to that muse. Unfortunately for the CC here they don't have a Scope clause to fall back on.

Whilst the two disputes were and are fundamentally different, stand by for a backlash of 'well you did it why can't we'.

As I have said many times before I think the CC and BASSA have done extremely well to maintain what they have until this point. Now Willie Walsh has decided to take on those practices and is using this current cash crisis as a catalyst.

I, personally, think you would have to be criminally insane to strike over these matters, which amount to a re-jig of the current contract producing a more productive department.

Time will tell.

Call me a cynic but 100% support in a ballot does tend to be the preserve of Kim Jong-Il, Robert Mugabe and Saddam Husseins of the world!

bassa
 

with regards to some comments on here, yes bassa see that the new fleet coming in however what they are asking ba to do is sign on the dotted line to say that current crews will not be out of pocket etc, ba have verbally said this however when it has been asked for in writing ( which will legally stand up in court as advised by the lawyer at the meeting) ba have refused , therefore its this that the strike will be over this.
and as also advised willy is out for the crews allowances etc, as the union got over the 82k amount of savings with out even touching the terms and conditions of the crew,
mr walsh is out to make ba a low cost airline not a premium service airline like it is. he has no experiance in managing a full service airline and this will be his down fall.
also ground crew and maangers have also today agreed to ballot so it look like mr walsh may now of bitten of more than he can chew
have you seen the mirror today this says it all. he makes mistakes and has now made far to many.
think he best be booking his one way flight back to the emerald isle on fr, now

lgeflyboy - whilst I understand what you are getting at I don't think BASSA are going to achieve this by not talking to BA any longer over these cost savings, there is no precedent for the protection of CC's work within the UK like there is for the Pilots (SCOPE) - if you want it, you will HAVE to give something in return.

And no I am afraid I haven't read the mirror today......... prefer the, oh I dunno, Sun? :}

lgwflyboy,

Very eloquently put. I think?

Never run a full service airline? Aer Lingus possibly, long haul, full service? Yep.

If, and it's a big if, the passengers were still flooding through the terminal. IF the business section were not emptier than the House of Commons allowances payback room and IF the revenue and cash of the company were not being burnt at an alarming rate then I could, possibly, understand your viewpoint.

But, as we all live in a realistic, modern world where being paid to be late is not one of the rules anymore. Or delaying a service into a foreign country so that the 'box' times can be met just don't wash. Neither do a vast majority of the antiquated rules that brings BA to its knees whenever the CC throw their toys out of the cot. Snow disruption was a classic.

WW will, unfortunately, walk all over your contracts as he cancels them one by one and retrains cabin crew on the new contract. Once done, the airline will be on hourly rates, fixed turn arounds and less sitting on backsides in the CRC.

The savings will come. The CC T's & C's will be brought, permanently, into line with other departments and the whole show will go on. November I believe the new fleet starts. Now is your choice as to whether you are on it.

No, No , No- were the results of todays BASSA meeting......................

This is not the way to compromise,and at the end of the day, would you rather be out of a job or continue with this NO attitude? Lots of people over the recent year have been made redundant due to airlines folding, do you really want to see BA being one of them? And no, i can't imagine the uk goverment bailing them out!!
Mr Walsh is looking for savings throughout the business, not just cabin crew. And why is their such bitterness between flight crew and cabin crew? Yes the flight crew have been asked to save alot less , but their are also alot less of them for a start!

Its isn't nice to think of the financial implications, but there will be alot worse if you have no job at all!

So BASSA have asked BA to sign an agreement to stop any change in current crew pay etc, why would they do this? Surely this is where the majority of the £82m has to be made???

Like someone already stated, time will tell

So should I fly BA?
 

No I am not Cabin Crew so apologies for commenting on this thread, but as a fan of BA and as paying customer it worries me greatly.

You guys do a great job, I travel BA because I like the service, but these days you are not alone. Full service or no frills there's plenty of choice. Can BA carry on losing £2.5M per week, no. Will customers go elsewhere if talks of strikes hit the papers, yes.

My industry engineering, struggling with the rest through recession, 30 of our 130 staff laid of so far. All are struggling to find work with 30 or so chasing any job advertised.

If you think no one will work the new fleet, or if thats what your being told, think again, suspect they will be queuing round the block.

Yes or course you want to keep the status quo, and yes you should try to get the best, but be realistic times are more than hard.

So as someone who likes all that BA offers I hope you find a way through this without destroying what you have, and also without letting strike punish the rest of us relying on you for hard won holidays.

Oh really? Perhaps you'd like to check your facts with a pilot instead of relying on the BASSA brainwashing.

Current trainers are already training crew for the new fleet, and have been doing so for a year. They're called temps. When BA suspend the first of the trainers for refusing to train whoever BA tells them to will we see a show of strength, or will they all go scurrying back to Cranebank?

No one has been 'harassing' anyone over this. Constructive discussion can often seem 'harassing' when one has few or no relevant points to bring to said discussion. As to jumping on the band wagon? Well sorry but the 'BASSA' style bandwagon was the one that the flight crew got off a fair few years ago when they were benchmarked for pay and conditions and many, many pilots took a cut to support those on the bottom who avoided redundancy. The re-negotiated terms and conditions are there for all to see and, apart from offering the company a fixed accountable value for hours flown, they are working well and allow the spreading of trips thus experience without the 'honey pot' trips being grabbed by the biggest gorilla in the tree.

Once the transitional pain has been achieved and the company survives the current downturn THEN the re-negotiation can start with 'well, we gave you this when the times were tough, now it's your turn.'. Not ideal by any stretch but better than the current 'we would rather bring the company down and loose every ones jobs to get WW'. Who, I am sure, is probably visibly shaking at the BASSA vote of no confidence from the 1500 out of 16000 that could be bothered to turn up.

Good luck, I pity our passengers and don't look forward to another round of 'traveller misery' headlines which will damage our cause no end.

Hi guys,

Believe it or not (and I accept that the default setting might not be to believe it in these times of strife) but per capita we're being asked to save more than twice the amount that each individual CC member is being asked to save. We've actually been asked to save £39 million over 2 years which, when divided by a smidge over 3000 pilots works out a lot more per head than IFCE have been approached for. Yes, percentages might well be different but it's not as simple as BASSA would wish to paint it for you guys. Union representation is important (especially in a sprawling, immovable monolith such as BA) but it's genuinely hurtful when another lie is spat at us in the flight deck in order to whip up the troops. The reps aren't there to deal with the fallout of these untruths and CRM spirals into nothingness. Oh, and by the way, we didn't nick the pension of the CC, BALPA found the NI loophole that helped preserve NAPS in much better health (BASSA failing to turn up to a number of meetings) and we didn't precipitate the loss of the 30 yr ticket. That was on BA's radar from the get-go of the ST2009 negotiations. The fact it appears to suit BASSA's agenda to badmouth all around is, as far as I can tell, as much a part of the historical fabric of BA as is the inability of management to meaningfully engage staff.

Anyone who thinks HMG won't let the airline founder in the current environment may have an unpleasant shock coming. They've emptied the purse rescuing the banks and airlines aren't that vital to the fundamental economic infrastructure in the UK in the same way. All the carriers would easily soak up the loss. It'd just be a bonanza time for LH/AF/KLM/UA etc etc as their routes in and out of LHR/LGW/LCY/MAN/ etc etc suddenly had the load factors we're all praying for right now.

Oh, and in case anyone thinks this is the spiel of a BA pilot who is enjoying some malevolent schadenfreude at the upcoming melee, I can assure you it's not. My household will suffer greatly in the near future if BA get exactly what they want. Between my partner and I we're going to lose a great deal of money thanks to WW/IFCE/Flt Ops desire to hammer our T and Cs. But I don't believe for a moment that the bellicose untruths that BASSA spit out can take away from the fact that the world is seriously ill at the moment and sticking our collective fingers in our ears and hoping it's all going to go away will do any good.

It's more than feasible that the airline could collapse and HMG wouldn't, couldn't and don't need to do anything about it. We're just not that important. I wish it were otherwise.

Mr B (with a genuinely sorrowful intent, I promise you)

Don't forget the flight crew actually moved over to the hourly rate a while back, and from what I have been told, is a fair way of doing it. So if it works for them then surely it can work for cc.

No probs,

We've been asked to save £13 million in year one (approx 4% pay cut) plus £26 million in year two (A further 4% on top of the first year). These savings would be permanent if BA were to get their way, as would those made by IFCE. Anyway, don't want to hijack a thread in the CC section so, my apologies if I've overstepped the mark, etiquette wise.

ATB

MrB

Just to add in the bit about the Daily Mirror. Unfortunately this is fairly standard custom and practice with large corporations.

By bringing individuals back as consultant they are effectively bringing them on board as 'self employed' personnel with no contractual obligation and a shelf life as long as is needed to achieve the task. No pension requirement, no medical cover etc. etc. In the short term it is an excellent way to bolster your managerial staff levels and experience without having to commit to long term contractual obligations.

But that would have been explained by BASSA as well wouldn't it.