Litebulbs - yes, what you say makes sense.

I do remember that DH posted something at the time of his dismissal that BA refused to de-roster him and that he decided that it was more important to do union work than turn up for his rostered duties. This posting, which I cannot be bothered to look up but is out there in the public domain, may well come back to bite DH hard. It may cost him both any ET verdict and potential unfair dismissal compensation.

It would not be the first ill-advised posting from the BASSA leadership, LM's comments wrt members leaving on VR being entitled to vote for IA that they could not possibly take part in would be one of these.

Juan
 

Not only on the forum, Duncan, live, on the Victoria Derbyshire show admitted that his union work was more important than fulfilling his obligation to work for British Airways despite being payed a basic wage of 45K to do so:ok:

But, if the working relationship between BA and BASSA was good, then it would be money well spent, but I am going to say that!

The way it works for cabin crew is that reps are given a normal roster and all scheduled meetings have to be applied for in advance of this. BA were always very good on this point. Sometimes meetings come up post roster publication and, again, BA would usually deroster for these (including purely on TU business).

What was never acceptable for TU reps to do was take themselves of of a rostered trip. It did sometimes occur but BA would chastise the rep. In times of Industrial strife BA always get more restrictive and in the case of DH it should be noted what time of year this happened. Christmas for reps would always be easy to get time off, however if you were threatening strikes over Christmas period this facility would be withdrawn and the reps would keep their roster or get standby instead.

I would guess BA will have a watertight case on this and will be able to quote chapter and verse on the TU deroster facilities if it comes to a IT.

Office Hours
 

One thing I do note is both threads are quieter outside of office hours!

Has the working relationship between BA and BASSA ever been good? For as long as I've been in BA it's been either BA do as BASSA say or industrial strife. You don't need to pay someone £45K to orchestrate that.

TimPole
 

What can I say to that? However, if there is an industrial collective recognition agreement, then you should stand by it.

I have just been watching BBC News and BB of the TUC was talking about focusing on the current proposed cuts. The BBC then fanned it up to nationwide co-ordinated secondary action. Lets all go on strike, that will solve everything.

Regards,

Disgruntled from Gatwick.

Is that the case for the Chairperson and Secretary?

Yes exactly the same. The Secretary/Chairman would be treated as a 'Senior rep' and give consideration for attending more meetings than others. However the rules applied equally to all reps and for operational reasons de-roster could be refused for them.

I imagine that if there is no evidence to counter what you say, it is going to be a very short tribunal. It will probably hang on reasonable time off and whether it could be proved that over time, less time off was allowed because of the dispute. But the mandate not to negotiate is a glaringly big statement, when you are trying to defend time off to negotiate!

I don't believe Holley even tried to defend his time off as negotiation time. He's stated publically that he took the time off to update the BASSA membership lists for a forthcoming ballot!

Tim
 

If that is the case, then that would be a reasonable request from the Branch Secretary, especially because of what happened in previous ballots and the reduction of crew and therefore members.

It mattered not to the pre-tribunal hearing whether his request was reasonable or not, they made it clear it was BAs prererogative when Holley should work. BASSA had stated that they would only deal with BA for disciplinary and H&S cases, does BA have a requirement to release BASSA reps for any other purposes? The law only requires reasonable time off for union work, yet Holley had only flown 20 hours in the previous year, compared with a typical 500 for Eurofleet crew.

TC
 

Well said. The problem has been that generally MOST reps have used the system to get out of unwanted trips. One rep told me last year that there was a majority who would use EVERY opportunity to do ANY other work, disciplineries, office duties etc rather than fly. Of course the minute a decent trip came up then they did it. Friend of mine was on the crew car park bus a few months ago and heard a loud mouthed rep OPENLY telling everyone that he wouldnt be doing the long day he had just got from Av , and instead would be doing an office duty. Shorter and more lucrative.

I am sure that if 20 hours in a year can be proved to be normal for a Branch Secretary, then there would still be a case.

If what you say is true and I have no reason to doubt you, then it is no wonder that the rest of BA feel the way they do about BASSA, if pprune is the majority opinion. However, if you read other forums, that view changes.

Oh Litebulbs,
How sweet of you to play the ingenue!

A story......pass on if you don't like stories.
 

The case most often quoted in time off for TU duties is Beecham vs Beal. It went to the court of appeal. (1982). Beecham became Glaxo Smith Kline Beecham. (Glaxo SK, or GSK).
Beal was an activist ASTMS rep within GSK, and Ian Moore, the then HRD was fed up with Beal. Ian, as an ex-TGWU convenor at the (then) Michelin factory in Scotland, didn't have much time for ASTMS generally. This was in the days when CliveJenkins, the ASTMS GenSec was doing dodgy personal property deals in Camden, using ASTMS money, and most of us in the trade were aware of it. Clive resigned "unexpectedly" in 1988.
(Clive regarded himself as an expert on Aviation)
The case was about Beal attending an ASTMS "conference/meeting" which Ian believed had no direct relevance to GSK. Ian saw it as Beal skiving, yet again.
At that point in time, Ian had a "mate" in the GSK legal team who was assertive, so they thought they'd take on ASTMS about time off for this meeting. Unfortunately for Ian ASTMS used a bright left wing QC who was trying to make a name for himself in the Employment law market, and who saw this case as a way of getting his name known. (Even BA's famous lawyer, Webb, was young once!).
The case went to the Court of Appeal, and Beal won. The Court put quite a wide definition on what "reasonable time off for TU duties" actually was. Ever since then, employers have been careful about when to refuse time off.

Er, except Ian. The next time Beal asked for time off for a very similar meeting, Ian told Beal that he could not have the time off. If Beal wanted to challenge GSK on that point, he could take them to court. ASTMS declined the opportunity to take GSK to court.

As a share holder in BA I would sincerely hope that 20 hours work per annum wasn't the norm for ANY BA employee!

Excellent post AO, thanks. This is why DH doesn't have a leg on which to stand. He was refused time off & in turn refused to work. Gross misconduct-bye bye.:(