Aer Lingus suspend their poster girl..
 

Sad news from Dublin as Aer Lingus continue in a bitter war against cabin crew in a dispute about changes to agreed roster policies.. at least a 100 cabin crew are in the process to be suspended so far.. and many thousands of passengers disrupted..

Aer Lingus suspend their poster girl.. Irish Independent


http://www.independent.ie/multimedia...do_798086t.jpg

Is everyone in Ireland called Walsh?!!

Dear malcolmf just to answer your rather condescending question not everybody in EI or indeed Ireland has the fine surname of walsh nor do we all live in thatched cottages with leprechauns co habiting::confused: however back to the serious point of the thread for those non EI cabin crew members who are trying to understand what is currently going on in aer lingus it's very simple, this is a straightforward example of union busting!.
EI have benifitted from millions of euro of savings given to them by both cabin crew and flight crew over the last 12months, for the company to say otherwise is a complete and utter lie! The cabin crew are now fighting for their right to have some semblance of a life, something which EI management who work 9 to 5 Monday to Friday seem to deeply resent.
Every human being should have the right to decent working conditions and I am very proud of the fact that EI cabin crew are standing up for themselves, I would like to wish them every success in their stance against loathsome bullying! If they stick together I believe they will prevail!!!:ok:

Can anyone shed any light on what the old vs new roster looks like?
 

Clearly management is in for the long haul, hiring in replacement aircraft isn't cheap, taking people off the payroll is a very, very strong statement.

I have no direct knowledge, and no vested interest in it whatsoever. But can I just ask someone to shed some light on the changes to the current roster versus the new roster, which is at the heart of the disagreement.

All I read in the papers are that the airline is looking for 850 hours a year. now, I presume that's flight hours, and as is always the case when flight and cabin crew hours are discussed, it looks outrageous to the layman who will divide by 40 hours to get numbers of weeks worked and surmise that EI cabin crew work 22 weeks a year and get paid for 52.

In that context, could someone give me a sense of how the current roster will change, e.g. from dub - bcn and back daily, for a month, to, dub - bcn plus a dub - lhr and back or something. At least then when you read that a cabin crew member was suspended for an unauthorized tea break you can get some sense of what is actually the substance of the issue, rather than have to rely on a non walsh surnamed industrial correspondent report blandly that a meeting took place today between union and workers today, the airlines responded by cancelling x number of flights, x aircraft and crew were hired in at a cost of (i'm sure this comes from the company press release) then you learn nothing more until the issue is resolved.

Before I get shot down as a potential journalist, I can assure you that I am not. I seek only some facts so that I can make up my mind as to whether these are legitimate productivity concessions sought by a company fighting a ruthless lo-co (with a shade under 30% stake) in it's back yard or, if they're another example of a race to the bottom with bully boy tactics soundly backed by a well oiled spin machine.

Vin Diesel,
I doubt that unless you fly yourself or work for an airline, it would be very difficult for anyone to explain rostering to you. Your example of 22 weeks a year really does show up the level of your understanding.

The fact that the pilots seem square behind these crew, unlike in BA where I work, speaks volumes to me, because it is an indication of this change being made unfairly.

It would be interesting to hear a bit more detail I will agree but noone would have the time to explain rostered and duty hours to you in enough detail for you to understand, I fear, without boring everyone else to death.

Go on. Try.

I am sure that Van Diesel is prepared to take the risk of "being bored to death"

Wouldn't mind
 

Not being from the industry a la Vin Diesel, wouldn't mind a course myself.

In case you do not wish to bore the others you could always point us to a hyperlink and we could go and check out the basic ourselves.

Thanks

BG I think you have misunderstood VD (unfortunate initials;)) He is saying that a layman might Not that he is a layman. He is asking for details for example is EI trying to increase flying hours and from what to what.

Flying hours = time the aircraft leaves the stand to the time it arrives at the stand of its destination. A maximum monthly and yearly limit is laid down by the National Aviation Authority, in the UK by the CAA. This will soon change to a European body called EASA.

Duty hours = From the time you report to work to start planning until you finish work i.e. debriefing, completing paperwork etc.

Regards from someone not called walsh

Hi vin just to reply to your question regarding rosters, EI cabin crew agreed to increase their flight hours last year under the infamous greenfield agreement from 750 to 850 flight hours however we can work up to a total of 1800 hours duty per year, thats the time on the ground at briefing, boarding, deplaning and the security checks in between flights etc.along with this cabin crew agreed to pay freezes and a reduction in flight pay along with some working condition changes allowing more flexible rostering by the company.
However the company recently published a new working conditions hand book which went far beyond what was agreed under greenfield. To cut a long story short the company removed virtually all the cabin crews working conditions to such an extent that they are now level with the minimum standards of EU OPS FTLs ( not a standard any crew member wants to attain)
To give you a few examples cabin crew have lost the right to request weekends off. Flight duty days have increased to 16 hours plus. On top of that you can position after the duty and it does not count as duty time.
Minimum rest on Atlantic flights reduced to 12 hour turnaround from 23
All meals breaks on flights have been cancelled. You can do a tour of duty of up to 27 days with very little notice with only a minimum of 2 days off upon your return. Your duty can be changed by 3 hours when you check in which
means you could arrive for an early morning flight and be told to come back 3 hours later for a longer duty.
I could go on but in a nut shell the cabin crew have been stripped of any chance to have a life, there is no balance just sheer contempt! Many of the crew have children and these new conditions mean that it is impossible for them to maintain a home and work balance.
This is a deliberate attempt by the company to rid itself of career cabin crew, as stated by our caring CX he is only interested in people coming in for 2 years and being worked to death. What a nice guy!!!

Well...
My friend works for the company for the past 6 years.
And it has changed completely at specially since summer.
Their rosters don't make any sense at all.
She would do two days of early duties than one mid than would go on a late followed by NY, come back two days off then another 6 on with maybe 1 off.
Up to 60 h a week get paid for 35 ) that is of course work hours from the time you check in till 20 min after you land b.t.w. passengers don't always get off the plain in 20 min.
850 h are flight hours. Just to give you an example of a duty double LHR is a 10 h duty but flight hours are about 3.5.
All that was before they implemented this roster.
Now they want even more because there is a gap of 3 hours currently most of the people have 830 once again FLIGHT hours. Take into the account ASH cloud and the SNOW delays..
So to reach the gap of 30 hours company just implemented following:

• All meal breaks removed from European flights. This means cabin crew can work shifts of up to 11 hours with no meal break. There was formerly an entitlement to a half-hour break after six hours duties.
*

Double’: shifts where staff must work on flights out and back from a destination twice in a day. (eg: Dublin-London-Dublin-London-Dublin. These ‘doubles’ can also include other destinations of similar distance, eg, Paris; Amsterdam; Hamburg. The doubles mean a working day of up to 11 hours – and more if there are delays for any reason.
*

• Duties can be changed by 3 hours on the day of duty. Eg, you could come in to do a 7am flight to be told you are on a different flight departing up to three hours later – and can finish work three hours later than rostered. A nightmare if you have kids or other caring responsibilities.
*

Similarly, duties can be changed by up to four hours the day before the rostered shift.
*

The existing right to request one weekend off duty every eight weeks is abolished under the new rosters.
The minimum of 8 rostered days off per month is reduced to 7.
*

Cabin crew can be sent to work away from base for 26 days at a stretch. No such duty has yet been rostered, but there are big fears about how this would work in practice, particularly for those with childcare and other caring responsibilities.
*

The rest period on transatlantic flights has been halved from 24 to 12 hours. This means that staff can do the outward flight to, say, New York and then work the flight back to Ireland that evening.

Hope this info helped. :)

Thanks for that. It seems really bad that they have done that without agreement.

Sounds like a real fight worth fighting for.

Good luck all of you.

Surprised this hasn't produced a thread here before having being an ongoing situation for a few days now.

My interpretation of this is that it's less of an attack on the CC themselves but an attempt to break the union, IMPACT. They are mostly to blame for this having led their members down this road. Remember they alone among the groups in Aer Lingus voted against the Greenfield deal. It took a threat to fire all CC and rehire them under quite different terms before a second vote was hurriedly held with a different result.

As more and more staff are taken off the payroll the more shaky the rest will become. We can expect people to break ranks and sign up for the new roster.

Management mean business on this one.

Cabin Crew mean business this time TOO!

The rest of the sections got a huge pay off. 30 k +
Yes, their conditions changed too.
But so did cabin crew conditions. Significantly! Just without a pay off.
But this is a step too far!

DeltaAlpha you would want to check your facts on who got a pay off. Only groundstaff (loader, check in, cleaning, catering etc) got pay offs or migration money as it was called. However the pilots, engineers and cabin crew got no such pay off.
Rest of the airline got paid to change there terms and conditions but the 3 mentioned above got no such money.

Fellow cabin crew member here from another airline (not Aer Lingus),

Good luck to you guys! And huge support to you. This is unfair they have done this without agreement and imposed these conditions.

For those of you who ask - the 900 max EU is only FLYING HOURS - there are more hours in a week ie. briefing, security checks, boarding, disembarking and turnarounds where we are working but are not counted as flying hours. So don't assume we just work for a few hours a week! We can do 2000 in a year (in the UK!)

Again, to all you EI crews, good luck - many companies staff are seeming to be going through disputes at the moment, we should all be in it together (good to see your pilots are supporting you!!!) We are all flying staff!

Really? I wouldn't count on it. Any resolution will soon evaporate as reality dawns as the money runs out and when the first people get their P45s.

IMPACT had plenty of opportunity to grasp the nettle. They chose to mislead their members and now their members are paying the price.

Aer Lingus will win this one, they have money in the bank and time on their side.

corsair, just curious how (in your view) IMPACT have mislead their members?

Whatever your views about Aer Lingus and the people involved, do you not think that this is a bigger issue? Is it ok now for any organisation to re-write the rules as they see fit?

Aer Lingus' cash balance (of shareholders money) should not be a indicator of how long it will continue with this dispute.

No one doubts the economic realities facing all of us but does that give employers free reign to hire & fire at will?

Well let's see, cabin crew were the only group to vote against the Greenfield plan. We could suppose that it was because of a certain militancy amongst Cabin Crew. More realistically they were probably lead to believe by the union that a better deal could be obtained. The company's reaction was to threaten to fire them all. That was the first miscalculation by the union. There was an immediate volte face and another vote which swung the other way.

Now you could hardly say that plan was embraced wholeheartedly by Cabin Crew or the union could you? Since then they dragged their heels with management still holding out for the mythical better deal. Introducing a work to rule.

Finally management lost patience and imposed the roster. IMPACT's reaction is to mount a rather weak campaign including complaints of sex discrimination, whining about disruption to family life and now asking Aer Lingus to reveal how much hiring aircraft costs. Frankly the appear to have no strategy to deal with the strong response of the company. They don't appear to have an answer. Meanwhile people are taken off the payroll daily and they will be fired once the whole disiplinary process is carried out.

It's not hiring and firing at will. I worked in capitalist non union companies. If you refuse to do the job the company way they suspend you and work their way through the disciplinary process. It's no different in the new Aer Lingus. That's the reality for most of us out here in the new economic reality.


That's what this union appears to have failed to grasp. The old rules don't apply any more. They failed to adapt and now their members are paying the price.

"us at BA are going through a huge dispute at the moment, we should all be in it together "

edited in response to Corsair.

If your version is true then there is a big similarity.

One union near here had its head in the sand, blamed all its woes on management (and others) and organised an unsuccessful industrial campaign resulting in many of its crew losing money, jobs & perks.

In both cases the individual members pay a high price for their choice of representative(s).