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).

Sorry I wrote in the heat of the moment! And left out pilots, you do know they are behind cabin crew 100%?! I know only the ground staff got migration pay off. And that is exactly my point! Cabin crew got nothing apart from their conditions taken off them and numerous pay cuts and pay freezes.
Thats what all this is about! I am sure CABIN CREW WILL WIN THIS ONE!

The Union actually endorsed accepting the package at the time as they had negotiated it with the company. The original plan by management was to basically save €20m by freezing pay/ cutting allowances/ removing grades. The union managed to find an alternative way to save that €20m, increasing productivity. The crew rejected it as it came hot on the heels of the previous cost cutting package of €15m, and indeed hot on the heels of the previous 3 or 4 cost cutting rounds. Crew were fed up with a management team constantly on the take and not introducing the promised benefits, eg computerized rosters which took YEARS to finally replace the handwritten rosters published every 2 weeks.

Maybe, but the blame still lies with the union to a large degree. My experience with being involved in union disputes is that many people have an unrealistic view of what's possible. The union's job is to reign in that attitude and bring people around to more realistic options.

This they have failed to do and when you look at their rather timorous response to this ongoing situation. You have to wonder what they are playing at.

Despite Delta Oscar's optimism the Cabin Crew won't win this.

That's disgraceful...A quick legality issue...I suppose Ms Walsh couldn't demand they remove her image from the billboard now that she's been "removed from the payroll",can she?

If it was me, I'd be INFURIATED!

(PS: for what its worth, I think Ms Walsh is incredibly beautiful too!)

Oh dear!

To Corsair et al - you seem to have falling into the Union busters trap... many companies at the moment from all sorts of industries are doing it... all hiding behind ''economic reality''

Sooner or later if this apathetic attitude continues we will be back to how life was before Unions.

I am by no means saying that Unions are perfect, but it seems people are more willing to accept impositions and rubbish working conditions and excessive cuts all because the companies hide behind the ''current economic reality'' line.

The cabin crew are 100% right to stand up in my opinon. I don't know the full story but EI seem to be totally immoral!

From the ground in DUB:

I reckon that this is micro-management at its worst, but it isn't a matter of CC "winning" or "losing". We need common sense to prevail, and at the moment neither side of this dispute is displaying it. IMPACT arent doing anything to try and get the public on-side, and management are taking micro-management too far and not being flexible.

Losers both.

Premium crew, like it or not that's the new reality. Other unions and staff in Aer Lingus accepted this reality, for some reason Cabin Crew haven't.

Unions have only themselves to blame. The screwed the system for years to the detriment of jobs and profits.

As for economic conditions being used as cover, that's not quite true. This has been ongoing for some time and in part is a consequence of unions misusing their position. We won't be returning to the days before unions. I've worked in several non union companies. Most except for a certain other Irish airline go out of their way to keep employees happy simply because it's in the best interests of the company itself. Disgruntled employees are bad for business.

Corsair, you may have missed the recent Aer Arann thread, as I doubt that they are 'the certain other Irish airline' you are talking about.

In my experience, airlines with no unions only need to keep the majority of people happy. Good luck to Aer Lingus cabin crew.

P.S. Are you sure it's a union bust? Aer Lingus just spent 25mill so employees could be issued shares. That'll keep them fed (and EI's bank account bleeding) for a while.

I have no stake in this either way, but the following reality check is required for staff complaining about "having a life":

"Aer Lingus’ total booked passenger numbers in December 2010 were 572,000, a decrease of 25.3% compared to December 2009, the airline said.

Short haul booked passengers were 504,000, a 27.3% decrease on December 2009 while long haul booked passengers in December 2010 were 68,000, a decrease of 6.8% on December 2009."

With numbers like that, it doesn't take 7 years in university to realise that you would be more concerned about feeding the kids shortly, rather than "having a life". With due respect to crew, everyone who is still working in private business in Ireland these days is working very hard. Everything, as usual, is relative.

I am glad that this thread has gained some traction. To my mind, i've learned more from the contributions on these two pages than I have from a fortnight of broadsheet and national broadcaster coverage on the subject.

I'm truly glad that a forum such as this exists where the truth can be sorted from the spin and sensible debate can prevail. With that said, I'd like to contribute to the debate based on what those affected by the changes have revealed.

The Irish economy is truly in a weak state and to echo the sentiments of the previous poster, those of us employed in private companies are undoubtedly working harder and for less pay (and paying more taxes too) to try to hold on to the jobs we have. In that context, and with Ryanair and the major US carriers competing eith EI for a share of contracting markets (in passenger numbers and importantly, yields) cabin crew should expect to have to work harder.

Clearly they have agreed to do so under the Greenfield plan, so I think we should focus on what the roster changes mean to the workers and to establish whether they are in fact, reasonable changes to working conditions, or, whether they are so disruptive and unreasonable as to be unworkable.

The aggregate numbers don't seem to bad on the face of it. It was mentioned that flight hours have increased by 100 hours, with 850 flight hours equating to about 1900 duty hours. So, a ratio of 2.1:1 duty to flight hours. At that ratio, the additional 100 flight hours mean about 210 extra duty hours. Assuming you do get 2 rostered days off per 7 days, and assuming you get 20 days leave, 9 days bank holidays, that leaves a working days of 232 per annum. so, the changes mean about an extra hour duty per working day. To me, that doesn't seem wildly unreasonable and over the 232 days works out as 8.5 hours duty per day. Obviously there will be peaks and troughs to average that out, and having worked shifts, including 16 hour shifts previously, I can appreciate how tiring long duty days can be, but it does average out over time.

A ban on requesting weekdays off appears outrageous. I think the entitlement to one rostered weekend off per 8 weeks was it, is perfectly reasonable and I would certainly resist those changes.

The double duty London, Paris, Amsterdam example was cited as a change and i'm afraid to my mind, that appears completely reasonable. Yes, it is a 10 or 11h duty day, but is that not fair enough? That alternative is needing one crew per return duty to short range European destinations, and that seems uneconomic to me in the times we live in.

One poster also cited the minimum Atlantic rest as 12 hours and that a crew member could conceivable work the outbound New York on one day and operate the return duty the same night. Given the published EI timetable for NY flights, I don't see how this is possible. Arriving at 13.15 into JFK, the crew would be first available for duty no sooner than 01.15 (with the next flight departing at 17.40) or if they arrive at 18.15 the crew would be available no sooner than 06.15 with the next flight departing at 17.40. so it appears that though the minimum rest is 12hours, assuming the flights operate to timetable, then the actual rest is likely to be closer to 20 hours - 24 hours. It seems to be that the minimum rest change has been designed to cope with disruption to the schedule so that if a crew is later into JFK but the next days flight is expected to depart on time, then they can operate the return leg on time and EI don't have to delay the JFK departure to abide a 24 hour minimum rest rule. That does seem reasonable to me.

Regarding the 3 hour alteration to a duty day - this could go either way. If that is again designed with flexibility in mind so that if the planned flights get badly delayed then the reporting crew can be asked to operate the flights they were expected to (albeit that they'll start 3 hours later and finish 3 hours later) this appears reasonable to me, as delays of that magnitude should be the exception rather than the rule. If of course it's going to become the norm, that you report at 0500 only to be told to come back at 0800 on a regular basis, then that's obviously going to be unworkable, but it strikes me that it's designed with the former rather than the latter in mind.

regarding meal breaks, i'm not familiar with how this operates, but it seems reasonable to me that crew should be allowed to take 30 mins for a meal after 6 hours, or 6.5 hours of duty. However, can the crew take this meal break whilst operating, i.e. in flight? Would staggered meal breaks throughout the day not achieve this, i.e. one crew member down the back on break during one segment of the flight? not sure of the practicalities of this but are management really expecting crew not to consume one iota of food from reporting for duty and finishing duty 10, or 12 hours later? Surely common sense can prevail here. I would be opposed to the idea that the turn around should be delayed by a minimum of 30 minutes for one sector of the day as all crew down tools together for a meal break, but surely this isn't the case and a commonsense solution can be easily negotiated, designed and implemented?

I've read Corsair's posts alluding to the fact that the union was simply playing hardball to get a better deal for it's members. Is this actually a substantive part of the issue? I know that all ground staff got a circa E30k minimum pay off and it's been mentioned that flight crew and cabin crew got nothing (the ground staff deal struck me as ludicrous as the time, what could be one years salary for a person with only two years service is a bit over the top is it not) so are cabin crew just looking for a pay off in lieu of the roster changes being imposed considering ground staff got a sweet deal?

Having read what i've read, there are certainly some legitimate grievances that cabin crew have but it strikes me that they should be resolved through negotiation (tweak the 3 hour duty change rule so that it can only be implemented x times per annum in order to prevent it being abused and to ensure that it's only used for what I suspect to be it's intended purpose of enabling flexibility to operate the schedule in the event of delays, negotiate an agreeable meal breaks entitlement - is it not illegal to deny a worker the right to a break under the organization of working time act???).

The work to rule is resulting in members being removed from the payroll and I think that some mechanism needs to be found to enable crew to return to work (perhaps operating the new rosters on a trial basis to see are they really going to be as bad as they're being made out to be) with a review process after x number of weeks.

This strikes me as a situation where common sense can prevail. There seems to be a lot of reference to management almost as the enemy. I don't think that all managers in EI are making CEO money, and most are probably on reasonable salaries and are just as concerned with their continued employment as the crew, and are making changes to the rosters designed to ensure the continued ability of the company to generate cash with which to pay their salaries.

That's an interesting assessment of the roster. All this talk of family life being destroyed just struck me over the top and more of a soundbyte than reality. After all no one has actually worked the roster. Having worked rosters and shifts over the years. I know that the practical application often differs from written down. It does seem to be designed to cover the exceptions, the delays and force majeure.

If that's an accurate assessment in any way. It simply confirms my belief the union have been misleading it's members. The management don't care. They are just turning the screw.

Ryanair Staff on Aer Lingus Aircraft
 

I believe Ryanair cabin staff have been hired in by Aer Lingus to work on their Airbus aircraft. Seeing that Ryanair only use Boeing 737's, are these people qualified to work on an Airbus as it is a completely different plane?

When you qualify as cabin crew, does your qualification only apply to one type of aircraft or do you have to do additional training to work other types of aircraft?

Ryanair cabin crew are not working on Aer Lingus aircraft. They'd have to go thru full training for the aircraft which takes time and that's only from a safety point of view. It would be the same if Aer Lingus crew were to go working for Ryanair. That's a poor rumour that needs to be knocked on the head now. :ugh::rolleyes:

As regards the other question about training for an aircraft. The short answer is that all aircraft are different and cabin crew need to train up on each individual type as the location and use of certain safety and emergency equipment and door types are different. A B737 is so different to a A320 as is a B777 to a A330. Perhaps to the average Joe Public, on first glance, there is no difference but there most definitely is.

EISNN, just out of interest, how long would this type of conversion training take? Obviously all aspects of safety equipment location and operation, exit layout,galley functions etc would have to be covered? Must be fairly intensive to ensure total familiarisation?

From what I remember it was approx 2/3 weeks initial training per aircraft. There are requirements set down by the IAA and the same is said for the CAA and the FAA. In fact I remember when EI operated a wet leased American MD11 (World Airways I think) which flew from SNN to JFK for four years during the peak Summer seasons. The cabin crew were required to follow an initial MD-11 course for three weeks. Just for that aircraft. The following years they were required to follow just a four or five day refresher course. Similarly EI wet leased an L10-11 from a UK company and the crew had to follow a similar course for a similar length of time. There are set out procedures/curriculums to ensure that every part of the aircraft is known, what each piece of equipment does and how it works and if god forbid there was an evacuation that the crew know exactly what to do and when to do it. Before the crew are signed off/certified they must do at least one familiarisation flight that lasts at least one hour 30 mins as an extra crew member to observe and ensure that they understand the workings of the aircraft - as required by all aviation authorities although times may vary.

So interesting.

haven't heard of this for a long time now.

Reports that the dispute is on hold pending an independant arbitrators investigation. BUSINESS WORLD - Aer Lingus crew dispute resolved