Litebulbs
 

Ah, "my Union right or wrong". The thing that amuses me most about the traditional Left is the way it slags off everyone else for unquestioning loyalty to its particular tribe, but elevates the same behaviour amongst its own to quasi-religious status. I say that as a member (yes, fully paid up and everything before I moved to Ireland) of what is now itself the defunct New Labour project (Blairite Wing - until he committed the UK back to imperial expansion in Iraq).

WW is doing your Union a favour by getting rid of the BASSA reps. Without wishing to be provacative, I think Walsh comes out of this whole episode as the biggest supporter for responsible Trade Unionism. He could have acted far tougher, but still clearly remains committed to Union involvement. Where he deals with normal human beings, eg resolving the pension issue, he strongly supports a collectivist approach (I don't incidentally).

In BASSA he has a group of self perpetuating reps. See the seniority requirements for progression in their ranks to see what I mean. And don't forget the show of hands at some London racecourse agreeing not to bother with elections whilst "the war was on". So he's set about doing what the members cannot do and, disgracefully, your Union's paid officers will not do, namely remove them. I say Unite is a disgrace for several reasons. Firstly, it's obvious that the reps are hugely conflicted. Why is suspension of the disciplinaries such a big issue, other than the fact a high proportion of them involve BASSA reps, to give but one example. Secondly, during the election campaign, one of Woodley or Simpson spoke at a Unite4Labour rally and said that BASSA had no chance of winning its dispute with BA and that the branch leadership was deluded. So what have they actually done to provide proper leadership to their several thousand members affected? Nothing is the short answer.

Now there's something we can agree upon.

JayPee28bpr
 

Some interesting points. I suppose it revolves around where your loyalty lies. You are an employee first and it appears some have lost sight of that. But there is two sides to this. Business uses reps on a regular basis, to be the delivery mechanism of their ideas, but when it goes wrong, you are the brunt of all problems from all directions.

When you get it right, the collective approach works, but the law has moved away from this over the last 30 years, but individual rights has not been kept in alignment. That is why we still have unions, so business and the state has to take some responsibly for this too.

OH is staff. Not CC. Staff don't get on the plane at all if it's full, so offloading should not be an issue. It's done at check in.

A long time ago, 25 years at least, OH and I and two friends ( one of whom was also staff) plus 1 child each were actually sat on the plane, when 4 passengers turned up. As we were actually on board, the adults were offered jumpseats, 2 crew seats, 2 in the flight deck (and we were told, specifically, the Captain had given permission). Obviously the crew seats were stowed during the flight, so the guys spent the flight on their feet. I daresay had there been a seat in a higher class they would have got it, under those circumstances, but in 40 years of OH working for BA, that's the only time.

As for upgrades, the rule as I understand it is that you can be upgraded 1 step from your entitlement in order to get on, and again that would normally be done pre boarding. Whether that has changed in the new ST rules since April 09, not sure. The '1 up rule' may not apply at all anymore. We have made it into First on 3 occasions I think, when Club has been full. Each time done either at check in or at the gate, not on board, and the last time was a good few years ago, about 2000 I think.

Besides, not sure of your point, even if staff are upgraded, there's still an empty seat for them to be upgraded into, so still no extra cost to the airline. They don't offload fare paying passengers and keep staff on, that's for sure.

Results out £164M Loss for Q1 this year.

Not too far off what the Ash cloud cost.

If BASSA weren't such a bunch of useless, retarded :mad: they would have been in the black.

Thankfully BASSA don't matter any more.

Fine job, Mr. Walsh.

:ok:

Simpson
 

Quote (Sky News) from Derek Simpson:

"These losses bring no pleasure to Unite. It is never our intention to see BA struggle."

Presumably he had his fingers crossed behind his back when he said it :)

Certainly not great news...but not all bad:

British Airways Loss Widens on Crew Strikes, Volcano - Bloomberg

Interesting that the press is picking up on BASSA's threat to give BA and their customers another "12 Days of Xmas".

BA needs to continue to minimize the impact of the militant faction in BASSA. There can be no gaining of customer confidence while they are perceived to have influence.

LB
 

Don't bring up the Everard incident. I wronged Tiramisu on that one. If there was no dispute, he might have got off, but why get yourself into that position?

I assume that if there was no dispute then he wouldn't have done what he did anyway. But if he had done that even when there was no dispute I'm sure the company's position would still have been dismissal for gross misconduct.

My company (a large private health company) would certainly take that view and we're not that well known publically. BA, as a worldwide brand, would have had little choice, even if it had wanted one.

@Safety Control

On the other thread you have said numerous times that it is not unlawful to strike.

It has also been written oft, that it is not unlawful for a company to remove a perk, so we obviously have two conflicting laws: a situation that can only be resolved by a judge.

I think it very unlikely that UNITE will go to court because:

1) WW has offered to re-instate ST (without seniority) and I don't believe
that the courts will descend to ruling on the minutiae of whether an ST
user is likely to get a seat or not.
2) The union doesn't want to risk its funds on a long-shot.
3) They might fear that the ruling could go against them and create new,
explicit case-law that would allow this action in other disputes.

No 3) strikes me as being a similar situation to The War Powers Act in the US where Congress disputes the circumstances under which the President can declare war, but won't take it to court because they fear losing and broadening his powers.

On another point, can any one say if BA sought costs for the cases they won and if they didn't, are there any BA insiders, who would care to specualte why not ?

The point you are missing about perks is that you cannot just decide today that anyone called John is no longer entitled to them.

Of course perks can be removed but only a blanket removal (all employees) or because of some form of discipline issue or similar (you have done something wrong)

To select victims on the basis of red/blue, tory/labour, city/united, striker/non striker is fundamentally wrong and could well be classed as a human rights issue.

Safety Concerns
 

The point you are missing is that they just have, and that currently, under our legal system, they are allowed to do so, because you are allowed to do anything that is not explicitly unlawful. Unless that's taken to court and the union win - which is anything but certain given the highly debatable nature of the law in this area - then you can't simply wander on here and say that they can't do it. Just because you want something to be so doesn't mean that it is.

Right now, the airline can. If the union want to take the massive risk of going to court, then it's possible in the future that BA can't.

Safety Concerns - ST removal
 

ST has been removed - fact. What danger does this pose to anyone?

The legallity of BA's actions are the subject of discussion only; note that no legal action has been started regarding ST by Unite, Bassa or any other body.

Your concern needs to be explained to be understood.

The "victims" selected themselves....after due warning :ugh:

You are quite amazing and I am genuinely shocked that this attitude prevails in 21st century Britain.

Today staff travel, what will it be tomorrow? You are allowing your glee at someone else's predicament to cloud your judgement.

You are advocating discriminate punishment. I don't like the name John. From next week unless you change your name I am removing staff travel. Fair?

Unite have started legal proceedings over staff travel and should it go the full course (which I doubt) I fully expect them to win.

Safety Concerns
 

Unite have started legal proceedings........

What does this mean?
Has Unite given formal notice to BA regarding these proceedings?

Er NO, didn't think so. It is just a bargaining chip to be played in the ever-slimming hope of redeeming something from what looks like a lost cause.

Again the question, without glee, is:

Why should the fact that a few thousand people have had a work perk removed present the rest of us with any problem at all?

Perhaps another non-contractual perk granted at the discretion of a company. I struggle to comprehend your end-of-the-world reading of this. I struggle even more to understand why you seem to think a perk is a matter of human rights. I can understand why a union might be interested in exploring that from a legal perspective, but it's anything but a genuine matter of human rights.

Safety Concerns, if it amazes you that a significant number of people hold an opinion which differs from yours, then I think you have a problem ...

Safety Concerns
 

You keep saying this, but I really don't understand the basis of your argument. BA offered staff travel back as part of the latest offer. Therefore Unite simply don't have a legal case for this. That's a fact. There is no argument they can put forward that would enable them to get a case listed on staff travel generally given that BA has already offered restitution and Unite declined it. As I've noted before, their only chance is to identify individuals suffering real loss (ie having to leave their job), and concentrate on those for whom they might be able to construct a case that loss of staff travel was de facto dismissal. Even that is a long shot. Again, BA offered immediate reinstatement of a commuter route, but Unite declined the offer. The Courts won't interfere in this matter, as the resolution being requested has already been offered.

How many?
 

I've seen so many different numbers regarding this thing and having listened to D Simpson on 5live this morning am even more confused. Can anyone help me with the following:

How many are still BASSA members, and how are the numbers substantiated?

If Unite have received 6000+ strike pay applications why are only approx. 3500 being deprived of ST?

Just curious.