BASSA Branch Secretary ET Minutes Now in Public Domain
 

British Airways’ cabin crew union is Unite; BASSA is the local branch of this union and is run by the Cabin Crew representatives.

The Branch Secretary of the BASSA branch was sacked by BA for gross misconduct. Unsurprisingly, he claimed this was unfair, and all about Union Busting.

The sacking was upheld by the Employment Tribunal. There was no evidence of “union-busting” presented.

The BASSA Branch Secretary’s Employment Tribunal Minutes are now in the public domain. Those BA passengers who have been implored by BASSA to support the actions of the BASSA leadership, and castigate BA Management’s handling of the strike, will find the minutes of the ET of interest:

http://www.mediafire.com/?t9jdr3ydm9pj9pu

I understand that he is now receiving an £8,000 per month honorarium for his remaining months as Branch Secretary – so in effect works full time for Unite. £96,000 a year – not a bad deal at all.

Others in a similar position, egged on by their leader, have not been so lucky and continue to be without work.

Highlights:

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"When summoned to a meeting with his manager, the claimant refused to attend"

"He said that as Branch Secretary he was afforded the same status as that of a senior BA manager"

"Ms XY contacted him by telephone on 16 Feb while he was on leave. He responded by sending a text message to her complaining that he was being harassed whilst on holiday. The text message read:

"No, I have already spoken to BAHS for 45 minutes last week. BAHS , with your involvement, are now making things much worse! Can't you idiots appreciate if someone is off sick the last thing they need is to be pestered by people like you."
---

It is important that this document has a wider audience so that contributors here can see the incompetence which lead to his own sacking, and the sacking of several other BA cabin crew who were BASSA members, went right to the very top of the organisation.

I trust this thread will be locked, but that free speech will be ensured by keeping the single post up, for those who have an interest in this matter.

Important Historical Facts should be accessible on pprune
 

Please mods padlock this thread but keep it available to your readers.

Thanks for posting it.
It is worth noting that the ET were not unanimous...........
A Mr D Warburton agreed with Mr Holley. I do not know who that D Warburton is/was, but there used to be a David Warburton who was a GMB National Official.

Having been stung a bit [financially as well as in disruptions] in the whole IA mess, was interested to read the entire ET report.

In the bit where the claimant is ordered on one occasion to pay some of BA's counsel's fees and expenses, due to an apparent snafu resulting in some lost court time caused by the claimant's attorneys, it says,

"Accordingly, as the claimant now works full-time for his union, we
order that he pay the respondent's costs in the sum of £4786."

Do they mean the alleged honorarium? Or an actual salaried job?

Thanks TightSlot - I agree there is no reason to lock out SLF from commenting on this, I'm intrigued why the OP and the following post ask for it to be locked. I wonder if either would care to comment on this.

Having said that I'm not certain that this tread really belongs here. It doesn't seem to follow the raison d'être of the SLF forum. However given the (often tedious) threads that were put in SLF, following the restriction of threads in the CC forum relating to the BA CC, perhaps it is appropriate.

It does seem to me that we are seeing more and more CC posting here in SLF, not to answer our questions (which is much appreciated), but to provide us with their views and opinions. A few have been of interest, but not many. I'm not suggesting that these be censored, but perhaps they should be made in the CC forum.

ExEB
None of the above posters are cabin crew.

...or even

"none of the above posters is cabin crew"

That just sums you up VK.

is/are
 

Oooooooh....there'll be letters.....perhaps even at::EPrime Minister's Q's!!!

My only view is that from this transcript, I would prefer not to be represented by some-one as out of touch with reality as Mr H appears to be!

Interesting this.

As someone who is (sadly) involved in lots of these, it emphasises that someone needs to get a grip of our employment laws - it seems that every line manager needs to have an employment lawyer tucked away in a cuboard in case of emergencies.

That said, as an outsider, I think that BA have handled this in an exemplary manner given the difficulties that they were presented with - but do BA's disciplinary processes really need two appeals? Rod for back springs to mind.

The minority judgement is really puzzling - it seems to me DH was seeking martyrdom. And I am surprised that DH didn't make more of his 'pychological illness' and claim it as a disability that BA failed to take account of when they considerd his behaviour!! (I'm not sure how effective a CSD this would make him either???)

I've followed the progress of the strike and Mr. Holley's involvement with huge interest. Unfortunately, my draconian computer system at work won't let me access the link; I've tried gooooogling to see if I can get the transcript from another source, but can't find it. Does anyone by any chance have another link that my computer won't take offence at?

None of the above posters is/are cabin crew
 

When I was a boy at a Public School I was taught that in some circumstances the subject and the object of the verb "to be" can be different in singularity/plurality.
I find support for find this on the Internet - link

Hmm. I'm not sure I'd trust a blog authored by "Gabe Doyle, a fourth-year graduate student in Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego".

There are plenty of sites out there (particularly US-based) which have a "come as you are" anti-prescriptivist attitude to grammar. Many of them perpetuate inaccuracies.

Just as it's equally grammatically correct to use -ize or -ise at the end of a word, the US English approach generally "favors" -ize and the UK English favours - ise.

It is still correct UK English to write "none of the authors is" and would be incorrect to write "none of the authors are".

Though I would much prefer some commentary on Duncan Holley's Employment Tribunal Judgement.

Message to VintageKrug
 

This is on page 664 of Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage

I've had another look at the wording.
It seems to me that Mr Warburton has substituted his judgement for the judgement of the employer. This is not allowed.
The Tribunal must judge whether or not what BA did was within the range of what a reasonable employer would have done.

As to what was done, all us "experts" will tell you that the employer must find the "moral high ground" and find a means of dismissing awkward shop stewards that members of a Tribunal would understand.

Let's be clear - BA changed the habits of a lifetime by specifically refusing time off for Mr H. The trumped up excuse was the weather and the ensuing chaos. The background was "Operational requirements". They had never had those requirements before.........especially not when Mr H was running BA, with CC managers scared of his every action, so we experts will tell you that the "requirements" were found in order to fire Mr H.
The cock-up by Mr H was that he not only refused to turn up, he made it clear that he would not/never be bound by existing agreements.
That's the moral high ground that he gifted to BA.
As to his allegation that the HR bloke agreed it all (secretly) in advance with Unite................ He probably did, but even someone from BAe isn't daft enough to leave any evidence around.

Mr Warburton's "judgement" of what happened probably isn't wrong, but the rules don't let him put his judgement in place of BA's alleged judgement.

PS many years ago, the O & C Board gave me a grade "A" at A level. That does not mean that my grammar is any good as mine was/were the first year that did not need to know grammar to get an English A level.

PAXboy stares out of the window before going to work and muses quietly to himself, "For an honorarium of £8,000 per month, I could be someone's martyr. ANYONE's martyr ..."

Back to reality: What's done is done. The old situation could not continue - whichever side you side with - common sense in the 21st century told you that everything had changed.

The question is: Will this dismissal change anything? I know that I am the Cassandra of the forum but I suggest that: It will make no long term difference. The fate of BA was cast years ago and this change is minor by comparison to other factors. However, I do think that it had to be done and only wish that BA's earlier managers could be punished for their lack of backbone. But that's life!

Betty Girl, thank you. My comments were more related to posts on other threads rather than this one. Your comments in this forum are most welcome, I appreciate the information you have past on that has helped me understand the perspective of the CC - my comments were addressed to other posters.

Since this thread posts little interest to me, other than being curious why two posters wanted the mods to lock it, this is my final comment here. I repeat my invitation to VintageKrug and notlangly, why do you want this thread locked.

message to ExXB
 

I don’t want this thread padlocked.
I did want VintageKrug’s important posting to survive a casual sideswipe of a mod . We are now past that vulnerable moment.

lack of cabin crew input on this thread
 

Hi ExXB, When Betty girl told you that none of the previous posters were cabin crew, she was giving you helpful information . Betty girl is cabin crew . I get the impression from various clues here and there that BA cabin crew are reluctant to say anything specific about the most recent i/r conflict . The wish for privacy is a good sign because generally people only talk about i/r disputes if they are current . I arrived in Melbourne a week ago and was not short of comments from Qantas cabin crew on what their management is allegedly doing wrong . When the Qantas arguments are settled I would expect their cabin crew to be tight-lipped.

Octopussy2 saidTry
http://www.h1932.com/A/
It is crude copy which has not been proof-read

notlangley
that's very much appreciated, thank you!

ExXB,

I don't really think they wanted it locked to stop people posting.

What they were worried about is that it might be deleted completely and they were trying to request that rather than delete the whole thread, it just be locked instead.

Not Langley is correct, the vast majority of cabin crew do not talk about the dispute, most just want to get on with their lives and discussing it is now counter productive to a good working environment.

It seems to be others that still want to discuss it all the time and most don't have any conection with BA other than being interested passengers of ours.

I'm sure Tightslot will close the thread never mind lock it if it drifts into a slanging match, as per previous threads.

I sincerely hope everyone can move on and work together for the sake of the carrier and its passengers.

It's important cabin crew have competent people representing them.

And it's also important that BA moves beyond the antagonism of the past.

However, it's paramount that the revisionism we have seen isn't perpetuated.

Having the facts of Duncan Holley's Employment Tribunal available for all to see - and on which people can make their own judgement - is a step towards the transparency which has so often been lacking in this dispute.

The decision is an interesting insight into the BASSA mindset.

"Union members first, and BA employees second" seems to sum up the whole problem between BA and the BASSA membership.

But that is what tribes do. All tribes protect themselves first and promote their interests. Whether the tribe is a family, a village, a football team, a union or a political party. Humans may belong to a number of tribes but the head of each tribe - has to put their tribe first.

Very interesting Vintage Krug and thanks for putting it up for all to see. Much appreciated. Whilst it was a long read, it was also sadly predictable. This guy single handedly tried, and still is, to bring BA to it's knees. I spoke to a colleague very high up in BA who told me they were ' spoilt' for choice on what to sack him for. After reading this, I now realise they were spot on. Well done BA for following this through. A lot of past senior managers and directors would have turned a blind eye to this, scarred of any repercussions.

I will never forget two very good friends whose families went through immense stress not knowing whether they would get away on their planned holiday at Xmas 2009 due to this guys ' 12 days of Christmas ' attempt at a strike. Fortunately he screwed the ballot up through his own arrogance.

He really is the bad side of trade unionism, and has done nothing for the
trade unions in general with his behaviour. And of course he is still there as
the BS collecting his union dues ( around 5k/month I believe ). As they say '
you really couldn't make it up ' :ugh::ugh:

keep this thread open...
 

it would be a shame if this thread were to be closed. the fact that the dispute is 'settled' doesn't mean that it has ceased to impact on BA staff or that there isn't room for further discussion of the issues involved. those issues not only affect BA and the staff but have echoes in other (transport) industries; the thread on tube drivers and their 'representation' is just one example.

i am old enough to appreciate well written contributions and do wince occasionally when confronted with a poorly written piece. it would be a shame if those who have something worthwhile to say felt inhibited in case their script were to be marked down by the examiner. john player's adverts used the slogan 'it's the tobacco that counts' and here our motto should be 'it's the content that counts'.

I agree entirely there is a whole lot more to come out regarding the dispute and it's effects on the airline.

There is at least one major court case due in 2012 and maybe more.


So please keep the thread open.

Do we know any more facts about the souces and uses of money by the bassa branch?
I'm not interested in rumours - pprune has had lots of them, but did anyone uncover the real facts?

Judging by the latest communications by BASSA they have absolutely no intention of honouring the letter and spirit of the settlement agreement that communications must be accurate and balanced. Some of them have been highly personal and just plain nasty.

Where are they now?
 

The interesting thing about this dispute and the revelations that are still coming out to this day, is that the truth is finally coming to light- even for those that were the staunchest BASSA supporters.

There is much disenchantment, many crew are finally realising that they've been sold a pup. I've always kept quiet onboard for fear of being lynched for being a strike breaker but more and more now I'm finding crew are saying they wish they had come to work themselves.

Witness those that have been sacked. I'm told only 3 of the 18 are currently employed, excluding of course all 3 sacked reps who are all employed by Unite- nice work if you can get it. Let them eat cake hey?

And what's become of some of the most vocal BASSA camp that managed to sneak away before they got into trouble? Well here's one, marketed at the time as a qualified lawyer and wise sage to the masses.

Now working as a RECEPTIONIST at a law firm

Not the high flying lawyer she and others portrayed her to be.

Could I suggest another thread is opened to discuss such matters.

My reason for requesting this thread be locked was to avoid the thread being hijacked by nefarious individuals (not you, AO) whose objective is to delete links such as that provided in the OP from public forums, with the aim of stifling debate.

Thankfully, this is not North Korea. Yet.

It would be splendid if this thread could now be locked by the moderator, to preserve it for posterity.

Thread stays open - content will be culled as necessary

Anyone have any updates on state of play with court cases etc?

That seems to be a procedural matter rather than the substantive hearing.