BA and attendance.
 

Well I guess this is one mainly for the BA bois and gals but everyones welcome to put their two pence worth in!

BASSA (BA mainline cabin crew union) announced today that talks between them and BA regarding the new sickness policy have broken down, and if BA tries to impose the new policy they will ballot for industrial action immediately.

For those on you non-BA ers, the new sickness policy is a company wide system of attendance monitoring. Basically there are different trigger points based on days or occassions sick and you enter into different levels of the process. The top one being dismissal. Every work group within BA has signed up for this except for the Cabin Crew as we believe it is unfair on us because we cant come to work with say blocked ears or cold sores where as someone working behind a desk could.

I was just wondering though, how many people would vote for industrial action on this subject? Im a bit split on the issue myself....

why should someone who is not a flight attendant come to work with a cold or blocked ears?

Its another case of crew throwing there toys out the pram if they dont get there own way because industrial action will not do some of there 'still on probabtion' colleagues much good at all.

Redfred, you are clearly a very ignorant person so I am going to go through things simply for you.

1. You can sit behind a desk with a box of tissues and work at a computer without harming yourself or infecting other people who will in turn have a take time off work.

2. You can sit behind a desk and work at a computer without breaking food hygiene regulations.

3. You can sit behind a desk with blocked ears without bursting your ear drums.

There is no reason whatsoever for taking time off work with a mild cold if you work in an office. If you are crew you are forbidden from working and can cause yourself serious damage if you have a cold. Should the rules be the same? No.

ok so how many times have you gone on holiday and had a slight cold and thought...hey ill be okay so ill go.

ok so why cannot BA crew member comply to the eg300 ruling but with exceptions like colds, blocked ears etc?

Because Redfred,
If we go sick with just one of these incidents it is considered part of our "allowance" of sick days and as a result, our entire sick record gets pulled and reviewed by the company with our permanent record under threat of becoming foul, they will refuse to review each incident as it happens!

But in a nutshell BA are trying to impress a "one size fits all" catergory onto the EG300. What is an unacceptable reason for groundstaff could be a very valid reason for cabin crew but BA refuse to see it this way!!! And anyways, If I came to work with a serious case of the s&%ts would you want me putting my hands all over your breadrolls, displaying the food on the plate in First or handing your children their Kiddies meal trays??? NO, I dont think you would want that!!!

A number of years ago I woke up fine and healthy, went to work and as I checked in I found I had slight sniffles. I really did not think of it at the time and still reported fit for the flight....3 hours later I was being stretchered off the aircraft with a burst eardrum!!!

Why can't BA crew use "Sinex" like everyone else?

Because Sinex only unblocks your sinus not your ears dimwit!!! :p

I am quite interested to know what redfred is actually doing in this thread. He is clearly not cabin crew or a pilot.

This one-size fits all policy is just ridiculous. It's like telling a builder he has to work with a broken leg, because a guy in the office doing the accounts is.

Maybe people should check out this link http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/ate/ent/203128.html for some information on what happens if you fly with blocked ears.

By the way, most cabin crew I know will do everything possible to avoid getting blocked ears/colds. For a start it's very uncomfortable, but it also can lead to long periods off work when we make no money.

whoever started this thread asked for people opinions and thats mine, crew want their own rules, its fairly similar to Chelsea and the rest of us......

it doesnt matter what i do for a living but i am an employee of BA

Redfred, the question was asked so people could make intelligent constructive comments.

You have simply taken a pop at cabin crew with regards an issue that you clearly know nothing about.

The vast majority of people at BA are fully in support of the cabin crew union's opposition to the EG300 policy. Who wants their companys front line staff upsetting their customers by sneezing over their meal, and putting their own health at risk at the same time.

redfred you are spot on. BASSA agreed to go onto EG300 providing that there were some exceptions laid out for the likes of blocked ears etc.

BA refused this, insisting on a blanket approach BA wide.

As an ex BA gorgeous trolley dolly I can say cabin crew do use the "cold" or "blocked ears" excuse when it suits them. I have vivid memories of crew having more than a cold on certain routes, but flying because the trip was high in allowances. I also remember crew comparing rosters on the crew bus to the a/c etc where it was common for some to say, " I won't be doing that horrible trip darling...I'm due a sick period around then!"

I worked for BA when crew had it extremely easy...and I was equally guilty of frequently going sick because I didn't want that vile MIA or because I wanted the 17th off didn't get it, but still went ahead with plans. Another reason for sickness was to change your roster - if you report sick, you get your trips wiped and from experience they are replaced with some nicer ones when you call in fit. Not sure how things work now, but I bet things haven't changed much.

Like someone said on here, crew throw their toys out of the pram far too often....and I used to spit my dummy out all the time until I grew up and left.
Now, where did I put my lemsip?

miche2,

I quite agree, there are too many crew who take sick days to avoid poorly paid trips and get time off. Unfortunatly their selfishness is spoiling things for the rest of us.

loads of crew are sound down to earth hardworkers who deserve everything they get, others are too up there own behinds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding your chance of an upgrade on Emirates......maybe the day hell freezes over. Sorry to sound negative but even as crew you are never upgraded, period!
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see what i mean!

Ok Chewy, I agree that there are times when cabin crew cannot fly with colds/blocked ears. But you also agree that office workers are able to come in with such an illness. Therefore it should be possible for any cabin crew member to come into work and attend for non flying duties. I am sure that the cabin crew would be grateful of the opportunity of not losing money and keeping up their good attendance record. As an engineer we agreed to this policy even though the Airworthiness Notices issued by the CAA tell us we must not attend for duty unless we are fully fit to do so. I think that the above would be a reasonably amicable agreement for all.

Fact: some crew are well-known to use sickness to engineer days off, a situation that has been the case since the days of BOAC.

Fact: flight crew sickness rate is approximately the same as that for office-based staff - cabin crew sickness would be expected to be the same as flight crew, but it is not.

Fact: there is nothing to prevent cabin crew with colds from office-based working.

Solution: Bidding (at a financial cost, but with motivational benefits), sickness monitoring - to ensure that employees are healthy and getting the required support and that shirkers are identified.

The reason that this irks cabin crew is that it compromises a beloved use of sick days to manipulate bidding, and remove undesirable trips. For many crew, it will have no effect, and indeed they will surely feel more supported that their employer is concerned about their wellbeing while ill.

Nobody is suggesting that if you are unfortunate enough to catch a lot of colds that people would be fired - one has to ask however why some groups are so highly concerned about how this might impact their lifestyle.

I would suggest that any reason of needing to be off more due to being operating crew to be bogus simply due to the flight crew comparison, coupled with many office workers often not working themselves when ill with colds as they are not particularly pleasant or conducive to concentration.

Nothing to fear from genuinely ill people I would say.

lucifer, all due respect, pilots are not exposed as much as cabin crew... Yes i know we all breathe the same air up there, but chances of catching it airborne in such a dry environment is much less than catching it from the person you just shook hands with as they got off, who not minutes before was wiping their nose.

Picking up trays of tray tables and stacking them into trolleys, having hundreds of people up to 4-5 times a day, sneeze, cough, grab, and touch you... Chances of catching something are a lot higher in the cabin than from the 1-2 other guys in the flight deck.

I do agree that the system is abused. A couple of girls I used to work with were notorious with the amount of sick days they took. Worst thing was, everyone knew about it, including management. What they didnt know is that management were going to do something about them until they dissappeard to another airline 1 giving 12 hours notice of resignation, the other just not turning up for duty - was interesting turning up for work and being the only flight attendant there - but not uncommon.

Its a hard situation to solve, the company I worked for was insistent that we didnt turn up to work with blocked ears. The nature of the flying we did (remote islands) meant if someone went sick there was no way around it other than to fly the aircraft back empty (2hrs each way), pick up a new crew, and do it over. This happened once and cost many 10s of thousands of dollars, and put crewing out for a week.

The idea about watching trends (dates etc) I am suspicious of. Just like we are expected to be available any day of the year, sickness can happen any day of the year. Still, for blatantly obvious cases this could be handy.

Why not just have a list of approved doctors, who they know are not going to fudge medical certificates? Yes its nice to see your own doctor, but other than having private investigators or expecting people to turn up to prove it anyway, I dont see any other alternatives myself.

The vast majority of the BA non-flying staff who have put their little oppinions on this forum are governed by that awful EG300 sickness policy and (SURPRISE, SURPRISE, YET AGAIN!!!) are jealous that the cabin crew had the wisdom not to sign up to this hideous policy and kept our own local attendance management policy instead. Last year you and your pathetic so-called 'unions' saw the (measley) £1000 payment and 'thank you' free Hotline ticket carrot and took it before you actually thought about the long term consequences. The situation is so dire that BALPA has been pleading with BA and the CAA to have this policy 'softened' for them as the rigours of working at altitude have caused one too many of their members to be put through disciplinary action.

Let's just face facts, shall we everyone? The cabin crew WILL NOT sign up to this policy and if it is enforced BASSA will ballot the membership for industrial action and we WILL go on strike. But the company will back down at the 11th hour (as usual) and will, quite rightly, water-down this policy for the cabin crew community. But the rest of the company will still have the full gamut of EG300 to face when they go sick. Oh well... c'est la vie! Enjoy! ;)

get your facts right BABOI the free hotline tkts and the money was for the hard work during the summer, ie the masses of people at the terminals and the low level of staff

oh and by the way its no wonder crew are despised with arrogant twats like you.

and by the by the eg300 still doesnt make a difference you can still go sick for a week or more a couple of times a year you just have to leave 3 months in between

Redfred

Are you the same Redfred who used to be cabin crew at longhaul LGW and who regularly used to post on the Bassa crew forum.Who gave up flying to work as a passenger service agent for BA.If you are you'll know full well that cabin crew cannot and should not fly with a head cold and numerous other ailments.Of course if you are a different Redfred then I apologise.

any 1 else think that redfred is one of those old moaning ba pen pushers who gets paid far too much to do far too little

BA Boi

You appear to be highly vociferous, yet highly political and lacking in precise detail - something which I note you did from your joining BA, when you posted on PPRuNe regarding the lack of bunk on the LGW 777s - which was again down to your lack of any understanding of the differing route structures and an apparent desire to fight anything that gave any inclination of anti-crew sentiment with fire.

Once again you have displayed such a lack of knowledge, turning events to your political outlook of the conspiracy against BA cabin crew that you perceive to exist.

While I will not offer any opinion as to why you are so inflammatory, your 'anti-all-other-employee-groups' attitude is terrible - and is not, I note, reflective of many of your hardworking colleagues in cabin crew.

I ask you - BA Boi - have you ever taken a sick day to avoid work? If not, where does your hatred of the policy really come from, as there is nothing in it that would impact upon anyone other than shirkers?

Why did you bother to join BA and poison the atmosphere further if you hate their policies so much? They are a company run for shareholders, not a charitable organisation run for a dinosaur of a union.


Ozangel - I take your point and agree that such a greater level is related to contact with people, however customer service agents in the terminal too - for example - have high levels of contact with many people yet do not display such levels of absence.


Why is there always a minority who ruin others' perception of the whole workforce? You must - BA Boi - have some perverse desire to be despised?

If you are to have such low regard for other groups and give such little respect to others' opinions, what treatment do you expect to be afforded - both in your opinion and as a staffmember?

Having worked on the ground and helped push (not in a nasty way - supporting him!) a rather large man up the steps into a Saab 340, who had just soiled himself, I can only too well understand the ground crew being exposed. (Never mind the stench the lovely FA and her pax had to endure) Also having done toilet dumps on BAe146s with faulty seals - resulting in crap all over the tarmac, and me with a shovel to clean up the mess...
(Thank god those days are over -hopefully)

Comparing the training i had on the ground, to the training i got for cabin crew, there was never a mention in the ground crew training about being sick at work - whereas in the cabin crew training it was rammed into our heads, sick? dont come to work!
Ive been at work sick as a dog in the air, and ive been at work sick as a dog on the ground, and i would choose ground anyday.

I have only ever taken one sick day - in my life, im one of these people that only ever gets sick on RDOs and Annual Leave. My sick day was not so much a physical sickness - if you get my drift - and while drowning my sorrows that night, i was caught out by the girl who does rostering - who understood and never said a word about it. (awkward, long story!). Should have been stress or bereavement leave - but i called in sick because it was too hard to discuss at the time.

Redfred

What's an upgrade with Emirates got to do with this forum. That quote is merely stating fact with regards to the policy at Emirates. A policy which, whether right or wrong, is enforced.

The whole topic is a hard one to call as I have been part of the system and like I say, having been BA crew for over 6 years I have first hand experience of what goes on. I hold my hands up and admit I got away with murder and going sick was as easy as anything with no questions asked!

I think crew are worried that the comfort of going sick when you don't want to go away or when you have your neighbour's 100th birthday champagne and caviar bash will have a real impact on their control over their working life at BA.

Crew used to have control over BA, but it is slowly turning the other way and it is not liked. From my humble experience crew did NOT go sick if they had a cold or even flu...the contrary, but up comes Ascot or Wimbledon and suddenly there's a rush of crew reporting "sick".
Believe me, on BA's flights to NRT, SIN/SYD and BKK/SYD sickness is practically non-existent as earaches and colds don't happen on these routes....funny that...$$$$$$$$$$

My guess is that things have got out of hand re sickness and that change is inevitable. Anyway, if you are genuinely ill, as long as you have a doctor's certificate there is little they can do...equally, if you are always ill, should you not get yourself checked out for your own peace of mind?

Please remember that the other thing which sets apart cabin crew and ground staff/flight crew:

Cabin crew are FOOD HANDLERS

We are therefore governed the exactly the same rules as staff in any restaurant/bar/pub/hotel.

Oz angel said:
I cant agree with this more. Having spent three years on the ground working both at a desk and in a less than waterproof uniform coat on the apron throughout several Irish winters, it is a lot easier to report for work when on the ground. The conditions on the ground are nothing compared to that in the air where the air is dry, the cabin is pressurised and everyone can see you wiping your nose!

I have only been sick twice since I joined BA. On one of those occasions it was a bank hoiday, Heaven forbid!!! I was violently ill at the time yet still got called several weeks later to "explain" why I had been sick over a bank holiday!!!

Its unusualy how this company works!!!

Yes, rightly so redfred, PSU worked exceptionally hard, but why did the staff who not even on duty during the disruption receive the tickets? Please also note how the crew didnt receive a thing, despite losing flights caused by delays which financially made up much of their pay, having to deal with streams of angry passengers on board, and having constant disruption to their roster not knowing when they would be home, or what they were doing for the following few days. Many crew were working maximum hours to compensate.

As far as the EG300 is concerned, all departments are susceptible to different ailments which would result in sickness. Pax services and crew would be unable to work with an injury such as a broken bone or bad sprain, office staff could work with this, crew cannot fly with colds, I wouldnt expect any groundstaff member to work with a bad cold as it will spread about, groundstaff and crew cannot work if they lose their voice, etc. I think BA would be fairer to take each case individually and if the ailment means not being able to carry out their normal duties as a result, they are honoured the sick day, without question. If a pattern forms however.....

The 'shirkers' totally pi*s me and all other crew off who actually want to work.
It is their selfish ''Idon't like that trip'' attitude that ruins it for us all and puts BA and BASSA in a very tough position.
I fly and I love it but suffered for months with sore ears but did'nt want to go sick but finally had to be 'grounded' for months.

I totally agree with BA that we need to reduce sickness.Well let's get the selfish sods who are off every year for Ascot,Wimbledon and Henley etc for patern sickness and sack them!!.

From my own very personal point of view I agree with BASSA's stance on this, that we cannot operate with blocked ears,colds etc or like me you could be off for months or worse still lose your job through ill health.I speak from experience as I have worked in loading,baggage handling,wheelchairs and check-in.

I flew with a Captain who insisted operating back to LHR with blocked and very painful ears at the turn of the year.He was in agony on the two short shuttles we had to do but insisted he was going to operate back as he was in the 'process'.

Such a disgrace that a professional pilot and nice guy had to risk his ears and possibly his career for EG300.
Yes if you ask, we all told him he was a stupid pratt for doing it!!.

WTDWL.

no i imagine thats people like you and your pal on here

Lucifer.....You raise some good issues but on one of them you are totally wrong. You say there is nothing stopping us doing office based work when we have say, blocked ears or a cold. And I totally agreed with you. BASSA HAVE approached BA on this issue and suggested exactly what you did....if we aren't bed bound sick, but cant fly, can we do some office work? BA's reply was no, our job is on the aircraft and if we can't do it on the day don't come to work.

It is true, BALPA are desperate to do a u-turn on their agreement to this policy as the number of pilots heading for the 'final stage' of the process (ir dismissal) are soaring.

For me it is as simple as this....unless I am REALLY sick I will come to work. Namely because, being on a basic of GBP11000.00 I can't afford to lose the allowences, whatever the trip. And if you do go sick for an unprofitable trip you can end up losing the trip following it, so it isnt something that happens often.

Miche2 exactly when did you work for BA?

It seems that every post that comes up about things goin on at BA sees you retelling an old (generally negative) story about BA crew that invariably involves a MIA trip. Did ALL these things happen on the same MIA trip or did you just do a lot of them??

I am a pilot within BA.

1) I have only been sick once since the new EG300 came into effect, and therefore have not triggered any of the stages.

2) Redfred is incorrect about being able to be sick as many days as you like, but only a certan number of occassions per year. There is also a limit for flying crew of 10 days per year. (This includes the day you called up sick, even if it was a day off. So people have taken to giving no notice, and calling on the day of report. Not a good thing for crewing purposes, but this is what the rules make us do.)

3) If I had been given the option, I would not have signed up to this new sickness management proceedure without certain changes. These would take into account that we cannot report with a common cold etc, but would not simply exclude you as often as you like if you have a cold. ie. I would give us an allowance of say 15 days or 20 days (or whatever is deemed acceptable). To give us the same allowance as anyone else is just stupid. Spending as much time in the environment that we do, at times when our body clock would prefer us to be in bed, weakens your immune system and you get ill more regularly - FACT.


4) At the end of the day, the CAA issued me a licence which requires a valid class 1 medical for it to be valid. I have had my medical revoked due to concussion. If I called the CAA each time I had a cold, they would temporarily revoke my medical too, but they would get pretty annoyed with me for wasting my time. This is why they give me the authority to do my own revoking for things such as colds. It is the LAW that I do so. BA should not be able to force me to break the law?

5) The question worrying me is, could BA sack me for going sick too often if I was genuinely sick on each occassion. Unfortunately, I think the answer with this new policy is YES. They could say an individual is sick more often than all other pilots and therefore are not well suited to the job. They could even argue that it is their duty of care to stop making you ill all of the time by employing you to fly.

6) Pilots have been told that if a BALPA member ends up at the final stage of this procedure, a strike Ballot will be issued. If you are not going to accept the WHOLE of the proccess as it is, why sign up to it BALPA?

7) I personally think BASSA are correct to stand their ground. However, I do not think cabin crew should be given carte blanche to go sick whenever they like. There should still be a limit on how many days sick, flying staff can take before triggering various stages, but this limit should be higher than general staff, to reflect that colds, headaches etc prevent us from doing our jobs.

8) For those arguing about whether a cold is an issue for flying staff or not - ask yourselves this: Would I like to be on an aircraft suffering a rapid decompression, where the crew mamber nearest me has a cold. Their ear drums have burst so they are so worried about the pain that they have not managed to get their oxygen on before passing out. You too have been in a bit of a panic, and did not get your oxygen on in time. Perhaps you were waiting by the toilet and there were no spare masks for you to get to in the few seconds of useful consciousness that you would have. Who is going to put your mask on for you now?

Similarly, the flight crew are currently trying to get the aircraft down to a safe altitude, but they cannot hear each other or the radio, because their eardrums have burst. And the pain is taking away much of their capacity. Perhaps they will set an altitude that is too low, and fly me into a mountain? Or any other number of things because they are not fit to fly, but have come to work because BA have applied so much pressure. Yes they were breaking the law when they pitched up for work, pressure or no pressure, but that is not going to help me when I am dead. Or perhaps they were not breaking in the law, but simply did not have the symptoms before the flight, from the cold they had picked up on a nightstop with one of the crew who came to work with a cold...

Finally - it is not true that BALPA are desperate to do a u-turn on this sickness procedure.

It IS true that they are constantly trying to adjust it. But they understand the need for the policy within the company and that is why they signed up to it.

Signing up to the deal had nothing to do with payrises or bonuses or anything. In fact i believe BALPA had already signed us up to EG300 before we were balloted on the pay deal.

I don\'t think we were actually asked for our opinion on EG300. As far as I aware, BALPA just signed it. Cheers?

The company are saving a lot of money with this new procedure every year. I think you MIGHT find that striking WILL be required to prevent the policy being forced upon you, if BA choose to go along this line. Remember, BA will be thinking of the money they are saving elsewhere in the company, and it is money that is saved every year, so it just depends how far into the future they are prepared to look (how many years of savings), before deciding it is cheaper to give in.

I cannot comment directly on sickness management within BA, but for the rest of us it is non-existent, with an attitude of take as much as you like.

keeperboy - I did many MIAs darling and I'm sorry if I appear negative, but I'm honest and my negativity stems from what turned out for me to be a pretty scummy job at the end of the day. Are you on the 747 fleet sweetie? Are they still making you stack endless trays of juice trays in the aft galley? All that vitamin C should get rid of any "cold" bacteria anyway.
Stay well.

Indeed I am on the 747 'darling'. And unlike you, I have a positive attitude as do most of my collegues. Without loweing the base too much it is people like you, who feel that you are FAR too superior to....god forbid....stack a trolley or prepare juice that give us the up-our-own lazy arse reputation that we BA crew can attract. You made the best decision of your life to get out.

Well, stacking trolleys and checking toilets is our job and most of us enjoy it. I'd much rather earn good money and enjoy good benefits this way than sat behind some desk somewhere doing the same job day in day out. And unlike some sad ex crew that feel the need to come onto chat forums and give their two pence worth of 'what was sweetie darling ' the rest of us who are actually doing the job are seeing the world and enjoying the lowly job we must perform.

Ta ta darling.

"I'd much rather earn good money and enjoy good benefits this way than sat behind some desk somewhere doing the same job day in day out"

So, cabin crew earn good money and don't do the same job day in day out??? I suppose the unpredictability and variety is whether someone has beef or chicken or tea over coffee.

I don't think MICHE2 is coming across as superior, but she is telling people what the job actually is and you don't like the idea of that.

And you enjoy stacking trolleys? I thought people did the job for the "glamour" !!

Hmmm...obviously not a flyer we have here.

Well, just to help the simple people out:

The variety could be:

a) going to new york for 24 hours.

b) going to nassau for 5 days.

c) going on safari in nairobi.

d) going to Bangkok and Sydney.

e) starting work at 7am.

f) starting work at 10pm

g) working with any combination of 10,000 other cabin crew and that changing on a trip by trip basis.....

h) Doing a flight of 7 hours.

i) Doing a flight of 13 hours.

OK traveller5, now let's hear what variety YOUR job has.

I don't think that there is any dispute on this forum whether you should fly with a cold or not. You should never be forced to either, however it is as usual the minority that will exploit this and use it as a ticket to a sicky. You can throw all the arguments in the world at BA management, but all you would have to do is compare the percentage of Cabin Crew sickness to another airline and all arguments are blown out of the water. Cabin Crew from the other airlines do exactly the same job to exactly the same places with I suspect a far lower sickness rate.