Stall Pusher...Glorious Leader and Chief Comrade.......(cf. Private Eye)

Have you ever considered a career in politics?...I only ask because you have yet to give a direct answer to a direct question, specifically did BASSA know that pilots had agreed to a reduction of their T&Cs before releasing the infamous statement and do now you accept that pilots are accepting a reduction in their T&Cs? ( a "yes" or "no" answer will do)


Oh, BTW, your much beloved Soviet/German "non-aggression pact", which you've insisted on comparing with the BALPA/BA negotiated settlement; remind me again who came out on top of that "little" 20th Century disagreement....or would going that far be another "inconvenient truth"

One thing we can agree on: all will indeed be revealed in the next week or two.

Stall Pusher
I can understand why many CC do not come to this website as it is PPRUNE (Professional Pilots), which is also a good reason why many pilots are drawn to visit and read what is being said here.
We also know that journalists come to this website seeking information.
Under the current climate of aviation with large losses being announced and forecast do you believe your views read by many is building support for your cause and more so BASSA’s stance from what we have seen so far?
With hundred losing their jobs in other airlines I doubt you are building much solidarity.

I'm not rewriting anything, the information is all in the public domain and verifiable, it's just that you don't like it and you don't want to to be true.

We did, and it was, and it screwed up the opening of T5. But T5 is breaking records now and yes, we did make a record breaking profit last year. The fact that we've gone from a record breaking profit to a record breaking loss is not a failure of Walsh, unless you have your head in the sand and believe nothing has changed in the world except the oil price (......oh, hang on). If it hadn't been for the changes Walsh drove through we'd have gone from an average profit to an even bigger loss. Believe the BASSA propaganda if you like but nobody - I repeat, nobody - with any business sense believes Walsh has lost all credibility.

It's all in the Avion accounts and due diligence will have revealed that before the purchase. I think Open Skies was a waste of money too, but you can't claim BA weren't competent enough to know what they were buying. Open Skies has cost BA less than the two day ruck they had with the cabin crew after their last ballot.

I'm not dissapointed, I'll be pleased if it goes, and BALPA did get a bloody nose. Again, does that give him more credibility amongst investors or less?

And as countless people have said, your claim is pure fantasy! You completely refuse to recognise that the premium market we made our revenue from has almost completely disappeared. Willie Walsh and Keith Williams stood up at the annual shareholders meetings and reported this information, backed up by accounts verified by the auditors, and yet if your claim is true then everybody must be conspiring to fiddle the accounts. Even other airlines! Ludicrous!


No, they avoid it because they prefer the comfort blanket of an anonymous forum where everybody agrees with them. That way the extremists can spout whatever vitriol they like, the moderators can control the agenda and nobody will be allowed to present a dissenting view. You can't get away with posting rubbish unchallenged here, and people will notice when your arguments are full of holes and based on rubbish and pick that feeble argument apart in no time at all. It's interesting that by and large the cabin crew posting on this thread are the ones who've thought the issue through for themselves and not the ones who swallowed the BASSA propaganda.

None have left in protest over Open Skies (much as BASSA would like you to believe that), and if walsh knows BALPA are a busted flush how come they have access to the companys accounts (after signing a confidentiality agreement) and Walsh and Williams will meet the pilots at BALPAs request when you can't even get the former to listen to your ridiculous list of demands? I know which union I'd rather belong to.

I'm sure it will, and I'll bet you that it's another angry "Newsflash" in which the failure to agree is no fault of BASSAs despite them negotiating hard in good faith and regretfully they have to call a strike ballot. We'll then get a big round of "Vote YES" stickers, a 95% response in support of the ballot, a High Court injunction against the strike from BA, 90 days notice on your contracts and a collapse in support for BASSA before everyone scuttles back to work. I wrote that in red so that it's easy to come back and find in 3 months time so we can see who was right.

The Molotov/Ribbentrop non -aggression pact was a classic act of betrayal and double dealing, hence the comparisom. Walsh has got the pilots onside, for now, with a sweetheart deal. Yet BA flight crew think this was down to "intelligent negotiating" by BALPA who found an "elegant solution". A bit of bedtime reading for pilots should be the life and times of Niccolo Machiavelli.

For the record I am not privvy to anything BASSA does and I do not have inside information.

I think it is time to get to the heart of the problem and that is Walsh's confrontational style. If he was sincere about everyone in British Airways working together, making sacrifices, working harder, to get the company through these difficult times, he would have gone about it in entirely a different fashion:

1. Cuts in capacity would have happened much earlier.

2. Fuel inefficient aircraft such as the 757 would have been grounded toute suite, rather than holding onto them for OpenSkies expansion which hasn't happened.

3. Unpaid leave, part time working and voluntary severance would have been given before the summer programme rather than being held back firstly as a carrot to get crew onto the new Single Fleet and secondly, being used as a lever to force through changes in T&C's.

4. BA has briefed the Press against cabin crew and Walsh has taken the unprecedented step of destroying public confidence in British Airways by his public pronouncements of the airline being on its last legs, which has led to a collapse of forward bookings. Even Richard Branson could not have done a better job of rubbishing BA and its staff. If a CEO was intent on protecting and nurturing a business thorugh a crisis, this is exaclty the opposite way to go about it.

If the Flight Crew community in BA are happy to fund all the mistakes made by Walsh and his management, that is up to them. Let us see what happens first: Walsh is removed by the Board, or BA goes bust.

Allegations of a 'sweetheart' deal come from BASSAs mouth and nowhere else. They are also deliberately misleading as they miss out substantial parts of the deal which have a negative effect on pilots. Of course BASSA knew that on 15th June but haven't bothered to clarify there comments over the last week. Now if BALPA really was the busted flush you suggest it is then why isn't Walsh coming down hard on the pilots now? BALPA negotiated smarter than your team (as they did with the pensions crisis). Get over it.

For the rest of your points:

1). You can't cut capacity rapidly without losing slots. BA have been cutting capacity as much as they can for months. With the alleviation of the slot usage rules we're grounding yet more aircraft and cutting back on frequencies and capacity.

2)Open Skies was never intended to have more than 5 757s, and you can't ground the aircraft until you have something to replace them with. The replacements will only arrive when Airbus can deliver them. You seem to think fleet changes can be made overnight just like that. They can't.

3)Unpaid leave, part time working and voluntary severance have been available for other departments for ages. You can't offer it to flying crew until you can cut capacity and make those positions unnecessary. See point 1 as to why you can't do that. Furthermore, offering these things to crew would simply prolong the inefficiences rather than fix them. It costs more to employ two part-timers than one full-timer.

4) The collapse in forward bookings started last September, and was re-emphasised at the shareholders meeting when Walsh refused to give any earnings guidance. That was long before the press briefing starts. This is not a chicken and egg scenario. The dire trading conditions came long before the bad press, it's quite clear which came first.

BA isn't going bust, and Walsh isn't going to be removed by the board. He's doing what they've wanted somebody to do for a long time.

Stall Pusher you just stated....

So perhaps you can explain your personal message to me on the 19th Jun which stated........

You certainly allude to have 'inside information'..... but like many of your arguments you are totally blinkered to the black and white facts and totally ignore data that does not fit your argument. A very dangerous human failing.

Or Flaps 40 - perhaps you might like to explain yourself please ?

Being "gagged" was being 'Moderated' off the forum for a while because I had been beastly to someone.

What was the question? If I had the answer, whatever that was, it did not come from BASSA.

That was not the PM I sent you, you have edited it. Why would you do that?

SP, you and BASSA don't like Willie Walsh purely and simply for the fact that he has the balls and audacity to go after the Cabin Crew.

How many years have various other departments been complaining about their slow restructuring whilst the CC, supposedly by good BASSA negotiation, have retained the majority of their 9170's style working practices. 15? 20 years?

Walsh was brought in to cull the senior Cabin Crew down to an acceptable, manageable and affordable size. That is the reason why the board have been backing him all of this time. The investors love him as they can finally see a light at the end of a long, dark unionised tunnel. The company is not run for Long Haul senior Cabin Crew, yet they seem to think they run it through their laminated cards and 'industrial' limits as opposed to the company limits.

Hopefully we can see a change soon, bring the control of the CC under Flight Ops (ironically where most other airlines already have it), the full command of the crew under the Captain and an end to ridiculous and embarrassing situations such as CC requiring 48 hours off following a diversion! If the pilots can get minimum rest and then fly the aircraft down with pax then why can't the crew?

Lets give the airline and the service back to the customers and away from over bearing, over paid and under-worked CSDs.

Finally, the BALPA plan stands whether or not the other departments cut a deal. If you don't negotiate like grown ups then there will be changes imposed and we will have our agreed changes. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't!

A story doing the rounds is that BA CC cost double VS CC per flying hour, is this correct ?

Even if the above false, most views appear to be that BA CC are paid way over market rate !

I just don't see an easy way out of this problem, BA CC have bills to pay like most people, these bills will not go away if they take a hugh pay cut.

I think both unions and management have caused the above problems over many many years of doing nothink, now all staff will pick up the tab.

June 30th, summer holidays, forward bookings, premium yield down for the distance, APD, UK taxes to increase and UK-NZ return flights being sold at £369 incl will make for an interesting few months indeed.

I wish all the CC well.

Before he edits his previous post, Ill recreate SP's post number 1009:


Ha, ha. Very mature Stall Pusher.

You are lying. Here is a screen shot by from my PM inbox to prove that.....

You will see what I wrote and your message are identical.


http://www.pprune.org/%5Burl=http://...g%5D%5B/url%5Dhttp://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4158/pprune.jpg


So - Why would you do that?

So what else are you lying about ?http://www.pprune.org/%5Burl=http://...g%5D%5B/url%5Dhttp://www.pprune.org/%5Burl=http://...g%5D%5B/url%5D
I'm just not going to rise to your pathetic games.

OpenLies. The topic of this thread is about British Airways and Project Columbus.

And your point is:

I haven't gone off topic SP.

The current Topic is why BASSA is lying and deliberatly misleading its members.

You specifically asked me the following question:

I have clearly shown that I haven't lied, but you have.

Yes, this is highly relevant to the topic as it puts many of your postings into context, showing you to have lied and been inconsistent in your postings.

The data above shows that you have lied, ignored the facts and still not answered the question. Not unlike BASSA.


Bye bye.

What a hoot.....
 

I have to say this is the most entertaining thread on Pprune for years!

But seriously - BASSA are doing their members NO favours with their Ostrich impression. They have spent so long telling both their members and BA what to do that they have completely forgotten what their purpose in life is - to represent the interests of ALL their membership, not just the old contract pursers and csds at Fortress Heathrow. By leading them over the cliff they have ensured that the coming pain will be far worse for them that it needed to be. By progressively abandoning cabin crew in the various BA outposts (LGW, Citiflyer, the Regions) they have lost all peripheral support for their cause, and fatally undermined their own position.

How can any organisation tolerate the cost disparity between a 272 seat 777 from LGW being crewed by 10, led by a Cabin Manager on £27k plus hourly rate, versus a 223 seater crewed by 12 from LHR led by a CSD on £35k plus Box payments, destination payments, one down payments, no-bunk-on-long-range payments PLUS allowances, AND absurdly restrictive "off roster" agreements?

Both are sold, quite rightly, as the full BA "brand", and yet the LGW product is offered at MUCH lower cost, and, in my view, with as high if not higher, quality.

THAT is the fundamental economic reality that BA shareholders and ticket buyers see. They, and by extension BA management, are no longer prepared to pay the "Danegeld" of buying off the obstructionists in BASSA. A hard rain is about to fall, don't say you haven't been warned.

Open Lies ......... :D:D:D:D:D


I've been following this thread closely without getting involved as I find it very interesting.

Lets face it, Anyone in the position of losing a fair chunk of their pay check is going to kick up a fuss. We cant blame them for that at all! However, the blinkered view of a few members in this forum are talking pure cr*p.

To survive, BA are going to have to make a lot of cost cutting, including cabin crew wages/allowences. End of.

Personally I think the moderators should consider banning Stall Pusher from this conversation as it has been proved now that he/she is stirring the pot and riling everyone up. Id much prefer a reasoned conversation going on rather than sensationalist cr*p based on absolutely no evidence and actively ignoring information that contradicts what they are saying.

Thats my 2p anyway. Good luck to the majority of cabin crew who realise there is a problem and want to negotiate the best result.

Chris

I think banning anyone from a thread for purely voicing their opinions is a travesty.

Lets face it, there have been heated, deep seated opinions from both sides of the fence, which has led this to being one of the most entertaining threads on Pprune at the moment.

Purely because an individual chooses to refuse to budge on an argument doesn't make them wrong. Whilst I disagree with what SP says and I think he/she is a good google searcher for his/her references I do think he/she has added quite al ot to this discussion if just through pure stubbornness! In fact a pure, thoroughbred BASSA representative, the stubborn willingness to ignore facts staring them in the face will see them through .......... to a nasty train wreck of a contract!

Keep going SP, I could do with a laugh at the moment! :ok: :}

Even if we would pay fuel at todays prices,
even if Willie would be replaced by someone else,

The company would still be in the same dire situation!!

Cost savings would still have to be made!!

Please make up your own mind by getting facts and figures from independent sources.

Hmmm, Pilots seem to have been invited to a couple of forums at some location?. First on 30th June with the CFO and the second on 02nd July with the CEO!

Might just get a heads up then, but, hang on, that could well be too late for BASSA, bet the 06 July meeting will be a cracker!

quote- runway vacated

How can any organisation tolerate the cost disparity between a 272 seat 777 from LGW being crewed by 10, led by a Cabin Manager on £27k plus hourly rate, versus a 223 seater crewed by 12 from LHR led by a CSD on £35k plus Box payments, destination payments, one down payments, no-bunk-on-long-range payments PLUS allowances, AND absurdly restrictive "off roster" agreements?

Both are sold, quite rightly, as the full BA "brand", and yet the LGW product is offered at MUCH lower cost, and, in my view, with as high if not higher, quality.

well, you got a point. you dont run a jensen interceptor on 12 mpg when you can get 55mpg out of a new car! much as you might like the retro styling! still wondering if walsh shelves newfleet threat would bassa accept everyone working to lgw t&c's? which would mean complete flexibility throughout bases etc. you guys do it- why shouldn't we? :confused:

In light of what exactly SP?

Walsh apparently has no credibility and should resign?
BALPA have led their members a merry dance of some sort?
Finances at BA are just peachy?
BASSA is a caring, sharing, thinking outfit?

All according to Stallpusher .....

But somehow we should all believe Stallpusher, who never answers a direct question, keeps his fingers in his ears saying la la la la, and writes in the manner that a 1970s shop steward would speak. Unbelievable. In every sense of the word. :hmm:

You're correct, it is an "entertaining thread". But I think thats not the major point of the topic haha.

Some of the opionions put forward (with no particular people mentioned) make me think I could get more sense out of a 10 year old having a tantrum.

That being said I think that I would feel exactly the same if i was in Stall Pusher's place. We all know that WW is trying to use the media and other ways to increase the support for cabin crew taking a pay cut, it makes sense for him to do that. That dosn't mean that its not needed though.

We are going through the hardest time in recent history in the aviation world. The loss of 400 million isn't fake, its real. Sure WW has emphasised things like "BA might go under" etc, but he's not just saying that to get the CC on side, he's saying it because he's trying to minimise the damage BA are going to take.

Stall Pusher, good luck to you. But you really need to face the fact that the premium market is basically dead at the moment. It may seem that loads are okay up there, but they are selling seats in F and J for a fraction of the price to how they were 1-2 years ago. I was once told by a finance manager that airlines could fly empty in coach, half empty in J and full in F and still break even. That was a while ago, but when your long haul planes are set up for a premium market, if you're having to sell the premium seats at a low low cost you're going to suffer big time.

It has long been said, in the GOOD days, that there is not a lot of money to be made out of running an airline. There isn't a big margain between cost and profit on any route. BA did really well in previous years with the 400 million profit, But it is going to be YEARS before the premium market picks up. Companies are downgrading their employees, and even economy passengers are either not travelling or swimming instead!

Stall Pusher, what you have to realise that your union isnt trying to protect you, its trying to protect itself. Both parties are fighting for power, and you lot are the pawns in the middle.

Just had an update from BASSA talks are not going well. Seems WW is more intent on talking about forming a new fleet/new contract instead of job losses.

CM on 27K?

Jesus! Only maybe the golden ex Dan-Air girls (God love em!). Majority are on around the 18-19K mark (plus the hourly rate of course!).

Minor detail, I know, but on a 3-class B777 from LGW we actually have 280 seats in total with 10 crew...

Gg

TOTAL. A lesson for Walsh
 

Mill owners all round the UK must have celebrated at the hard line taken by TOTAL bosses against workers at their Lindsey refinery, who walked out in protest over job losses. Even a few people on this forum got some comfort out of this news as an example that with the expected dispute in BA on the horizon, cabin crew would also get short shrift from a rampant Walsh.

So how lovely this-morning to see a tight lipped Human Resources Manager from TOTAL wheeled out in front of SKY cameras, to plead with the union to get his ball back.

And you can imagine the scenario now unfolding at BA. Walsh pathalogically unable to back down and refusing to compromise, harking back to his old days as a militant trade unionist, pushes BA's cabin crew into a corner and out go the strike ballots. He used 9/11 to scare Aer Lingus staff and now he is doing the same with the current downturn. How lucky can you get?

Viewing the various forums where cabin crew are speaking out, I was astonished to find that it is on BA's own ESS forum where without the protection of a pseudonym, BA cabin crew are lashing Walsh. Dozens of crew have stated exactly what the think of Walsh and his tactics. In fact he has even replied publicly on the forum to a letter from one steward, the tone of which has further incensed the cabin crew community.

This does not bode well for BA management who wish to push through their proposals, as all these crew have committed themselves to standing up to imposed change. Forum rules do not allow me to copy and paste, but I would assure you that the openess of the debate on the company website is startling. For a moment I thought I was on the BASSA forum!

But the cabin crew are mere pawns in Walsh's agenda, his real target is the government. By the time the restructured APD rates commence, BA will be in such a fragile state that the swingeing increases will automatically push the airline into bankruptcy. Will Gordon Brown dare introduce the new rates of APD whilst the UK's aviation industry is in crisis and risk killing the goose?

That is why Walsh has nothing to lose. It will all be over anyway next year.

The big difference between the two scenarios, SP, is that the Lindsey workers are both specialised AND demonstrating solidarity.

This does not apply to LHR cabin crew. There is a large and willing cadre of staff at LGW trained to exactly the same standards as those at LHR MORE than willing to come round the M25 and do the work, plus a huge number of crc checked former temporary contract staff desperate to have a more permanent job with BA.

With minimum crewing (and the inevitable strike breakers) there are plenty of people to keep the show on the road should BASSA push the self destruct button. Talk is cheap, and nowhere is it cheaper than on internet forums, but actions are much, much more expensive. The rest of BA can see that (the wholely unrepresentative) BASSA are willing to risk the future of the entire company through their intransigence and inability to handle change. There will be scant support for any industrial action from other departments, and a lot less within the cc community than you think. Time will tell.

Sorry RV. You are completely wrong. BASSA is part of UNITE who represent the majority of staff at BA. It is very unlikely that GSS will agree to Walsh's proposals either.

BASSA is not intransigent as it has already tabled proposals that give Walsh the savings he wants. All this mystical belief BASSA refuses to negotiate etc is absolute nonsense, peddled by a few people with a self serving motives.

As far as staff at LGW manning flights at LHR, they haven't enough crew for their own operation at the moment!!

SP, if you bother to read a little more into the Lindsey dispute you will also see that the workers were sacked and then told they could come back to work on 'new contracts'. This is their sticking point and, as has already been said, they are specialised and difficult to replace workers.

Sadly, looking around the myriad of fresh, young faces at Brain Crank the other day, the same cannot be said for CC.

So take comfort from your rhetoric because it doesn't even apply to the situation at BA.

How defensible the current CC T's & C's are to the shareholders and investors is obvious. Totally indefensible. Currently doing the rounds are CC bunk rest lights. This is the 'biggie' of the day as the engineers are complaining that they seem to be getting broken with alarming regularity. Odd that when, if the bunk light is permanently 'on' (for safety reasons) when the swith is broken, then the CC can't get adequate rest thus trigger a £500, yes £500, discomfort bonus! So, please, please, please tell me how that is defensible?

SP, I think your ideas are from the Marcel school of industrial management!!

(Sorry folks, but Short-haul Cabin Crew will know of this one man strike machine).

Sadly, to replace us requires a bit of balls, good planning, some finance, checks through Disclosure Scotland, and minimal training.

We are not actually 'licensed' on any aircraft. We can be replaced. Lets not create our own self destruction.

Ah, yes, this would be the same UNITE that pulled the rug from under the last "strike that never was". Face it, you are on your own. There is NO chance of secondary action, and yes, there are PLENTY of crew at LGW. You need one cc per pair of doors or 50 pax, so a 777 can go with 8 (vs 12 at LHR) and a 747 with 12.

BA HAVE to win this. Future investment in the company is conditional on work practice agreements being made more efficient (in the case of LHR cc, MUCH more efficient.) Without future investment the company will go under, so with that much at stake WW has to win or he might as well go home.

In that case, it would be a very pyrrhic "victory", but at least the cc would be able to congratulate themselves in the dole queue that they kept their box payments to the end!

Wobble there are three push button light switches on a 744 at the top of the stairs for the rest area. It would be very unusual that all three get broken. The electrics are a mulitplex system where there is no direct link between the switch and the lights. Same with passenger reading lights. That is why the CSD can switch reading lighs on or off from the computer in his/her 'office'. There is no such override for the lights in the crew bunk rest area unfortunately.

The reason the lights occasionally stay on in the rest area is due to a fault in the mulitplex system, not some sort of sabotage of the switches for financial gain as you have scurriously insinuated.

Generally as BA cuts back on expenditure, many of my colleagues are experiencing a deterioration in the onboard systems such as AVOD and aircraft being dispatched with unserviceable toilets. It would help that when faults are reported, that they are fixed back at base. It is not unusual for aircraft to be sent out with faults such as bunk rest lights stuck on, as hard presseed engineers at base prioritise repairs.

SP, we need to alter our mindset...........and put our passengers first.

I noted you said "many of my colleagues are experiencing a deterioration in the onboard systems such as AVOD"................surely that means our customers are experiencing a deterioration in the onboard systems such as AVOD!!

Who insinuated that? I just happened to mention that they seem to be getting broken a lot lately and the rather incredulous payments that result. How can £500 for having a broken bunk light or having to get your beauty sleep with eye covers be justified? Guilty feelings perhaps? (p.s it is spelt scurrilously, don't forget the other 'l' )

All that aside I am just amazed at how BASSA can continue to crow that it has negotiated. BA want to change the core of the business to be able to compete in an new era of travel where the customer has less money to spend or is more circumspect in how they spend it. BASSA offered WW temporary savings over the next two years after it was made patently clear that permanent savings were required. (See case above). The temporary savings were then to have been paid back IN FULL when BA returned to profit as well as re-instatement of all previous T's & C's. So, not much negotiation there, just a begrudging temporary release of commitments, but we want it ALL back!

BA CC are good, some are better than others, some are worse. Fairly standard cross section of employees really. However, some of the top third are milking the system. Already on pay levels that far outstrip the industry standard they enjoy 'disruption' payments that are on an eye watering high scale. Coupled with an intransigence that defies belief when things actually go wrong and a total lack of consideration of the customer by demanding their 48 hours off after a diversion for example.

There are alot of willing new crew members and many of those on the lower pay structures or the SH fleets who are also fed up with this disparity.

BASSA (BA Senior Stewards Association) are clutching at straws now. They realise that WW will force through change and that they stand to lose an awful lot of face and members.

We need to concentrate our efforts on providing the level of CUSTOMER service that keeps people coming back not wasting vast amounts of money on nebulous payments to crew.

Fixed hourly rate, fixed flying payments and a fixed TAFB system for CC. Get rid of the 'credits' system and we can all operate off of a level playing field.

Hmm, sound familiar?

Imasteward, I totally agree.

A couple of things really upset me about BASSA's stance, and their apparent sluggishness in negotiating a deal for us.

They are playing a very high stakes game, risking our livelihoods, both present in salary, and future in pension. If they dont reach an agreement by the 30th, the Voluntary Redundancies will become Compulsory Redundancies.

Secondly......where else could we find such a 'gay friendly' employer as BA? I dont think there is one in the UK.

A DOM (Duty Ops Manager) told me the other day they have had a big increase in the number of bunk lights unservicable due tripped circuit breakers, that is why they now have to get the engineers to verify a genuine fault before they dish out the huge discomfort payments.

I still find it amazing that crew couldn't possibly sleep with eyeshades on when pilots taking first rest on a non bunked aircraft have to try and sleep in a club cabin with lights on and the full service being done to a passenger in the seat next to them. (Lets not even discuss what charter pilots and cc do!!!)

Probably BASSA argued that cc have a much more safety critical job.

Remember that the person looking after wheelchairs is now assigned to a working position because it was found that all 15 crew were staying behind and then popping up to the DOM's to claim their next box payment/ overtime/ extended rest.

Act like children, get treated like children, what else do you expect?

Anyway back to the topic, airline in trouble, can't cut fuel costs, can't cut ATC charges or maintenance etc etc, whats left? Yup employee costs.

BA crew cost double the nearest competitor, with an £800 million budget you could thus save £400million and that would put the company on a break even from cc alone.

CC got off lightly really with only a 14% cut and not 50%, the proposal even keeps pay as it is and just reduces crewing levels and saves in the future with a new contract.

Could have been much, much worse but no, cc don't save, they don't work harder, they don't reduce terms and conditions, never have and never will without a fight.

So once again we will have a fight. (Lets remember the last strike was about removing 1 crew member and tackling excessive sickness rates, let alone removing several crew and introducing a new fleet)

There are lots of superbly written posts here, alas all wasted, you can't reason with people like SP, they live on their planet, we live on ours, unfortunately when they destroy theirs ours will go with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if Willie caves in the end, it's happened every time before, this may be different but I'll believe it when I see it.

It could all end in tears but don't be surprised if BASSA the great triumphs again, they do run this airline, they will be a hard nut to crack, cracked they should be but at what cost?

A worrying time for us all. In fact God help us really.

P.S. another great post wobble, will it turn the tide? Sadly, of course not.

For those that complain about un-servicabilities in the cabin, come and have a look at most aircrafts Acceptable Deferred Defects (ADD's). I don't just mean BA I mean most airlines.

The problem comes not from 'over stretched engineers', though that is a problem for anything that can't be deferred, but time. An aircraft on the ground loses money. Plain and simple. Punitive slot time fines, airways fines and arrival delays cost a fortune. Hence, if the aircraft is on a short base turnaround and the fault is acceptable to the Captain then it goes.

Perhaps if we had to pay out less for the distress and discomfort of the crew at having an unservicable toilet or bunk lights then we could allocate more resources to making sure such minor fripparies like the passengers AVOD works correctly.

The company is there fore the shareholders, investors and passengers. Put them first.

Thanks for the spelling lesson Wobble. I usually spend time correcting mistakes becuase I am hopeless at typing, not because I can't spell.

Yes Andy, I am sure that a lot of pilots are attracted to BA because it is so 'Gay friendly'. You are lucky to be in an occupation which offers you such a vibrant social life as a bonus.

Customer service will not be improved if you take crew off of the aircraft. Walsh changed the "core business" at Aer Lingus and now look at it...unable to compete with RyanAir as a low cost carrier.

If the circuit breakers have "tripped" Plodding Along, that means there are no lights. Don't you know that? I will be much more vigilant now about Flight Crew taking 'controlled rest' whilst they have a heavy crew member in the bunks. Thanks to you, I will be reporting the matter in the future. So please carry on with your attacks on cabin crew.

TOTAL dispute
 

I just want to correct some misconceptions about the above which some posters appear to think has relevance to BA's ongoing negotaitions with staff. I think the two are very different. The Lindsay dispute is an example of what can happen where there are multiple employers involved, all acting independently, whereas the workforce thinks they ought to be acting in a more collective or collegiate manner.

A key point in the dispute at Lindsay is that TOTAL is not the employer, but is probably the party that is suffering most. TOTAL is a client of a company called "Jacobs", which it has engaged as main contractor to build an extension to the refinery. In turn "Jacobs" has sub-contracted work to a total of nine other firms, one of which is called "Shaw". The dispute started when "Shaw" made 51 people redundant at a time when some of the other sub-contractors were hiring. The redundant workers were apparently not able/allowed to apply for jobs being created by the other sub-contractors. Staff from all (I think) the nine sub-contractors went on unofficial strike. "Shaw" and some other firms sacked the strikers, but not all nine sub-contractors have sacked their workers.

Hence the reason why the TOTAL HR person was looking for a speedy resolution is that the dispute is holding up work on their project, but they don't actually have any direct link to the dispute. It's costing TOTAL a fortune (completion is behind schedule and over budget), and TOTAL desperately needs this up-and-running to boost refining capacity.

My understanding of what's happening at BA is that, firstly, all CC are directly employed by the company and hence there is only one employer. Secondly, although part of WW's plan is to put together a "New Fleet" with more flexible working conditions, all existing BA CC are entitled to move to that fleet if they wish. Thirdly, WW wants to standardise CC T&Cs generally, from the current position of multiple (and very different) terms depending on whether CC are SH or LH, LHR or LGW. So I don't think the Lindsay dispute offers much of an example whether you are for or against WW on this one.

You can report the flight crew all you want SP, management will simply tell you to get back in your box and whilst you're there to read your JPMs.

Anybody else read the latest BASSA communique? I have to say it did make me laugh! Their main thrust of attack now seems to be to imply Willie Walsh is actually mad! Wonder how effective that strategy is going to be, as they don't seem to have any other strategies on display.