It's definitely something to be left to the court.....Us mere mortals will no doubt continue to argue the points even when the decision is made.

An entitlement is a guarantee of access to benefits based on established rights or by legislation. A "right" is itself an entitlement associated with a moral or social principle, such that an "entitlement" is a provision made in accordance with legal framework of a society. Typically, entitlements are laws based on concepts of principle ("rights") which are themselves based in concepts of social equality or enfranchisement.

If nothing else it will be interesting. ;)

As one of the SLF without staff travel: Just came back from Denver in BA Club.
Outbound a good flight with no attitude problems from the cabin crew and on the return the CSD was working the cabin with the rest and I was greatly cheered by a male attendant called Tony who seemed to have a humorous quip for everything I could throw at him.

No sign of any hot towels but there again it was Club and not a cheap UK Charter flight!

Pity that the flight deck were so uncommunicative. Apart from a brief TOD chat there was nothing even when we obviously had to hold for 15-20 minutes and this threw the original arrival estimate.

It looks as if there is some hope for the future of BA.

Glad you had a good flight.

FWIW the brief is pretty much to try for minimum announcements, certainly from the flight deck, once airborne (to avoid disturbance to those sleeping/watching PA's/enjoying the Cabin Service), though an extended holding delay probably would be worth a mention.

We seem to be at cross purposes here. An embargo is not the same as removal of entitlement (and by 'right' I meant entitlement, if you want to split hairs). An embargo is by it's very nature temporary. Staff affected by an embargo know that it is temporary and just due to circumstances, and that everything will return to normal for them in due course.

An embargo on staff travel for all staff during a strike to avoid having staff stranded all over the place is very different to having your entitlement to staff travel removed. Staff affected by an embargo still have an entitlement, and can go on applying for tickets for periods outside the embargo period. My spouse has had his entitlement removed during IA 3 times in the early part of his career, and restored as part of the settlement, but has been affected by an embargo more times than I can remember.

As for no entitlement during sick leave, that is a pretty obvious restriction, to avoid people self certifying sickness just to enhance holiday allowances.

What has not been made clear here as yet is that ST has been removed from employees in the past for taking Industrial Action.

During the Gate Gourmet dispute a number of TGWU (Unite) shop stewards were disciplined by BA for unlawful action.

Some where dismissed and others had their ST removed for life as a punishment.

I do not remember any court cases, human rights claims etc being made for them by the union.

If this cabin crew ST dispute gets to court I would imagine the BA brief will immediately bring this information forward.

That was, as you said, for unlawful action. The Gate Gourmet dispute was not a BA dispute, (the catering had been subcontracted, and BA's own catering staff taken on, on the whole, by Gate Gourmet, it may have been, not sure, that BA sold off it's catering to GG as a lump, staff included) but secondary strikes at BA were encouraged in support, and that was clearly unlawful. The CC strike, however misguided the reasons, was lawful.

Still, if they lost staff travel as a punishment, it does at least mean it has happened as a result of a disciplinary situation, which was a question I asked earlier. Striking CC are not going to be on disciplinaries however, not just for striking, so it's unclear just how relevant it is to this.

I shall certainly watch any court case with interest.

As for no entitlement during sick leave, that is a pretty obvious restriction
 

Yes, but the point is that the employer has in the past "removed, suspended, embargoed " the "entitlement" for a variety of reasons. Previously the "entitlement" has been restored (in most cases)
Therefore I assume using precedent the employer can remove the perk. The only difference now is that the employer forewarned the employees that the removal would be permenant.
Doesn't seem like rocket science to me.
However as you said the court case, if there is one, will decide and make a pretty penny for someone.

Every time you book an ST ticket you agree to these T&C's, there are others, this is the most relevant. So, each time you book a ticket you personally agree that ST is non-contractual and can be removed or varied at BA's sole discretion. I see this as being a very difficult hurdle for UNITE to overcome, particularly as the consequences of putting yourself in breach of contract by striking were clearly defined beforehand.

Thanks, Juan ... that's a very important factor to be placed in the public arena.

It's a shame it has taken so long to be revealed; the Media might even have noticed that :rolleyes:

It will be a genius of a lawyer to argue his way round that one, IMO.

Right ... One down, two to go. Next case?

MPN11

That fact has been in the public domain since this dispute started.

If you search all the threads I'm sure that you'll find it.

The fact the BASSA choose to ignore it is not surprising given their form:hmm::rolleyes:

Sorry, TopBunk ... so many pages, here and on the other thread, I must have missed that.

Still, it's nice to see it re-stated.

just an observer: Thanks for your reply. Interesting to get the facts on what's happened to ST during past IA.

TopBunk/Juan Tugoh: That's the bit of info I was looking for. To be honest the search engine is a little difficult to pin point something like that, unless it's the way I'm using it :O

Anyway, Mrs moleytt and I are off to Boston tomorrow - with BA of course. Recent flight reports sound encouraging, so looking forward to it.

moleytt

MPN11

No problems. This dispute has been going on so long that almost everything worth saying (or indeed not worth saying) has been said several times at least that one could almost lose the will to live:hmm:

Reputedly attributed to Woodley (on this forum or elsewhere) when questioned privately at the TUC conference, he admitted that they (BASSA and/or Unite) were f***ed in this dispute, and it was all about an exit strategy.

Note: that is not to suggest that BASSA accept that viewpoint, and that, throughout this dispute has been the ultimate problem - BASSA will take no council from anyone.

BA only talk through Unite (because BASSA have refused to negotiate) and Unite can't deliver any BASSA agreement without re-instatement of those dismissed and ST for all, so we end up with apparent stalemate.

Only apparent, because in the meantime, BA are making the desired savings through the crewing changes, and BASSA through their intransigence, are accelerating BA's growth of MF and their own demise, by opting out of any discussions of route transfers to MF (for example, the newly announced routes to HND (Tokyo Haneda) and EZE (Buenos Aires) direct will almost certainly go straight to MF at a saving of about £8000 per cabin crew rotation per route - all avoidable had BASSA agreed to negotiate.

So sad that so many have been so misrepresented by so few for personal grievances and vendettas:=

Thanks, TopBunk. I wasn't trying to stir, honest. I've been reading this and other Boards for the last 12 months, and I've flown during strikes, and ... arrrgh! It's so easy to lose your way and try to remember what's been said, especially at my age!

Anyway, I'm flying BA on Monday and Tuesday [CE then CW] and I know it will be a good experience. How good depends on the particular crew operating out of LHR, of course.

Fingers are crossed, and best regards to the great majority of BA CC! ;)

When is the court case re the withdrawal of staff travel for the strikers at BA? In my 35 years in the airline industry staff travel was a privilege and not a right. If the case goes against BA I would think that many airlines around the world will have to re-think their staff privileges. Just my humble opinion.

Why? IF the case goes against BA, staff travel will be no more contractual, no more a right, than it is now. And it isn't contractual. I don't think anyone here argues that it is, certainly not me. Nor Unite, I'd assume.

Presumably all the court case will determine is

1. Whether the withdrawal of a discretionary privilege, normally available to all staff, from those who went on strike, is a punishment for striking, and

2. whether an employer bound by UK law has the right to punish employees for going on a legal strike.

In this particular case the means of punishment is staff travel, but it could be anything, depending on the employer concerned. It's the principle of punishment for striking, not the method, that counts.

Other airlines around the world aren't bound by UK law anyway.

BA's lawyers haven't shot themselves in the foot yet, so they must reckon they have a good case, but it will still be interesting.

BA's lawyers thought they had a good case when they lost at appeal last time....
One of the reasons that only a fool says they know the law is that it changes so frequently and in this field so much is based on case law.
Of course it's about a punishment for doing something lawful. BA may have messed up by just withdrawing it from the strikers. That could be seen as punishment for taking part in legal strike action. What was withdrawn is irrelevant.
I think Litebulbs has been trying to convince folk of this for a while now.
As my crystal ball is broken I won't guess at the outcome, but, it should be interesting whichever way it goes.

call100, absolutely agree. IMO the answer to item 1 in my post above is 'yes' it is a punishment. We all agree that BA can withdraw staff travel at their discretion but it's the reason they have withdrawn it that counts.

As for item 2 I would like to think that punishment for a legal strike is unlawful, but I certainly wouldn't bet on it.

Whichever way it will be judged, bassa might expect compensation for travel expences for the allegedly penalised members and if they lose they ll blame a corrupt court-judging system and the argument will be going on and on:ugh:
They are not interested in a settlement but simply to fuel their hate for the company they work for and generate as much damage they can possibly inflict in doing so.

Call100 and just an observer are I think correct.

In the first instance BASSA mentalists were running around explaining to all and sundry that staff travel was contractual, this was soon dropped very quickly, suprise suprise, of course it didn't help that BASSA sent everyone a text explaining that staff travel would be "back in 5 minutes"

Interestingly crew-defence lawyers are dipping their toe in the water at an Industrial tribunal utilising the race relations act, of course all this is being paid for by individual crew donations, and one wonders if they could afford to take this all the way to the ECJ.

What should of course be worrying for both cabin crew and BASSA are the time lines involved. I would expect BA to fight all these cases all the way to Europe if necessary.

BALPA have a similar case pending with the financial help of the TUC (should please BASSA mentalists who want them rejected from the TUC) It started out at an industrial tribunal in March 2006 and is now expected to be heard at the ECJsome time in 2011 with an opinion in 2012, and even then it gets bounced back to the British courts to deal with.

Only 6 years then ,I hope Cabin Crew and BASSA can be patient;)

It starts to get interesting when you think along the appeal process.

Let's postulate that UNITE do not win their appeal and decide to take it along the ECHR route. There is precedent for this - for interests sake try Googling Danilenkov. A case before the ECHR is one against the UK rather than against the company - it would be that UK law has failed, not that BA had not complied with UK law. Even if UNITE were to ultimately win at the ECHR, it would still be down to the UK legislative body to change the law. Generally what happens is that some compensation is awarded, but again, see the Danilenkov case where the strikers were effectively gotten rid of, the compensation is paltry.

This then, is effectively a one shot go for UNITE, if they lose this appeal there would be very little benefit to proceed further for them. BA on the other hand have everything to gain by dragging this out for as long as possible. The longer this goes on - the ST issue - the better it gets for BA. The downside is very small and the strikers who rely on their ST are being slowly drained. I am still not sure that UNITE have thought this through very well.

I tend to agree with this as well, which is presumably why the full restoration of staff travel was hoped to be part of the settlement deal, as otherwise it's all too long winded. Once BA took away staff travel on a permanent or loss of seniority basis, Unite weren't left with many options to think through.

Just a couple of points .........

I've been following the original thread since around September last year, and this thread since it started. To my knowledge, prior to Juan's post, nobody in that time has identified the existence of, or the words of, the disclaimer regarding staff travel when you sign for it.

The existence of the disclaimer and the frequency with which it is continually being reinforced, clearly stating that there is no obligation on BA to either allow it in any instance or to continue to do so, leads me to believe that this alters all of the theories discussed and put forward, including any idea from BASSA or UNITE, that BA can in any manner be forced to give ST to anyone.

If I have an item and the sole ownership of it, tangible or otherwise, that some one else desires to have or share, I am the sole judge of what I shall do with my possession, regardless of any screams of 'give me' or 'I demand', and if I so wish I am fully at liberty to destroy that item. As indeed I am to run out of patience with any person I employ in my business, and say - you are fired - you have the legal right to sue me if you wish - I reserve my position regarding reasons.

I believe that BA may be very close to this response.

I see Willie Walsh has been appointed president of the London Chamber of Commerce for two years. Looks like he will be in the UK for longer than BASSA would like.

Madrid is only a couple hours away - and with ST quite inexpensive......
Sorry I am out of here....

.
It may be difficult to take seriously, TS, but believe me the phrase is well suited. Those of us within BA have been expected to respect and treat seriously the views of people who are either hell bent on inflicting damage on our employer or simply deaf to reasoned argument. Their increasing unwillingness to either compromise or accept reality has, as has been noted on here by several commentators, all the hallmarks of a cult. An acknowledgement that any of their cherished beliefs are wrong would undermine the entire, carefully constructed fabric of lies, half truths and deceptions. Hence the impression that myself and many others get that they are brain washed and, indeed, 'mentalist'.

Yes, thanks, I had quite appreciated all that already,although it is always a pleasure to see it concisely explained again.
I can see that I'm flogging a dead horse here - you just carry on and ignore me.


:)

If only it were that simple......What a wonderful world it would be.;):)

TS....Thanks for trying....

With regard to the ST disclaimer you are unable to proceed with any ST request without first ticking the box to accept the terms and conditions. No ticked box = no cheapie to anywhere land! :{

Therefore, IMO, everyone who uses ST must be fully aware that it can be taken away at the Employers behest for ANY reason.

By removing ST from strikers and only from strikers, BA weren't punishing them, they were merely 'sending BASSA a message'.

A minor point. Just because BA have a disclaimer saying that the staff member agrees it's a perk and can be withdrawn at any time doesn't necessarily make it legally watertight that they can do so. In the same way, just because you sign a contract doesn't automatically mean that all provisions are legally enforceable - the company must abide by the law.

If they had a disclaimer that said everyone must stand on their head and sing the national anthem, chances are that would be viewed as unreasonable and set aside - irrespective of how many people signed it.

I always thought the term should be used as 'BASSAmentalist' rather than 'BASSA mentalist'. The latter is indeed a childish term the likes of which one would expect to hear in the playground. The former, I think, rather neatly distinguishes between those BA crew who are willing to listen to the outside world and those who do adhere strictly, and unthinkingly, to the fundamental principles of BASSAs beliefs.

Call 100 ............

"If only it were that simple......What a wonderful world it would be."

If the above dismissive and meaningless comment is the only response that you are able to make to a considered statement regarding Contract Law, then I suggest that you restrict yourself to only responding where you are qualified to do so. :E

Papillon ...........

The point that you are missing, is that the BA document is not a disclaimer, it is in itself a contract between BA and the person signing, governing that single transaction.

As one of these is signed for each ticket issued, it is each time an individual contract, not a disclaimer, therefore the concept of this being supplied only under the same contract and conditions is reinforced and updated, each and every time and, has been so for a number of years. It cannot be argued that the tickets are supplied under any other terms and conditions of contract, or even modified in any degree.

In any contract between two parties, the question of both parties being required to comply with any applicable law of contract would apply, but I would be surprised if BA had not by now, produced a nice, legally tight contract to cover this area.

Finally - if you wish to stand on your head and sing the national anthem, so be it - just sign a contract on the dotted line with anyone who is interested enough to draw up a contract!! - but just remember - you a entering into a contract of performance - not a disclaimer. ;)

That was my feeling back at Post 2170, but I'm not searching the Web for the next week to try to find out!

However, what the Courts make of the overall issue of withdrawing ST will be very interesting. Having read a lot of comments, here and elsewhere, I'm slightly less confident about the decision in respect off BA's position. It does have a sense of 'punishment' about it ... and it will undoubtedly take an expensive lawyer with experience in the field of IR to determine which way it goes.

I guess we have to wait and see - the decision won't be made here! ;)

Entaxei, can I refer you to a recent post.

If the reason for withdrawal is to punish a legal strike, they may be on dodgy legal ground. The point has also been made that we are talking about the principle of punishment for striking, the fact that the means of punishment is staff travel in this instance is irrelevant. Your post did not debate on that point at all.

There are wider issues involved than BA's provision (or not) of staff travel. BA does have the power to withdraw staff travel, but their doing so could set a precedent throughout employment law as it relates to strikes. This is what any court case is likely to cover. As Call100 says, it's not as simple as ' BA can withdraw staff travel whenever they want'.

Entaxi, MPN11,

You may be right, and I couldn't easily find the quote via the search function, but I have seen it posted somewhere quite a while ago (and I'm sure I'm not becoming senile and only remembering it from the BA Staff Travel internet site!) The trouble is that this dispute has generated upwards of 15,000? posts over the last year, so trawling through them is tiresome and unwieldy with the tools provided.

I guess the only proof is someone finding a link in these threads - I can't be bothered to research it any further.

Anyway, the bottom line is that it is certainly out there now, and adds to the understanding of the arguments.

@ TopBunk ... whichever! ;)
Probably an issue for someone very highly paid in the legal profession to determine whether the exercise of that clause could constitute unfair treatment of a striking employee. At the moment I'd go for an each-way bet.

And I posted the exact quote from BA in reply to Litebulbs during the strike. It has been on here several times.