Jessica Starmer - BALPA's view (Update - Appeal decision)
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Sadly, for the 99% of females who do the hard graft with minimum complaint along with 99% of the other gender, the last sentence of the previous post says it all.
...I don't know whether I'll be brave enough to appoint another woman who is likely to have children during her training.
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AI...
You are making some strong statements about JS speaking to the press.
In my recollection she has not done much speaking at all. Most of the "speak" has been from BALPA, some pretty snowy baby pictures, and some statements via lawyers / at the tribunal probably vetted / cleared with BA.
Indeed, post the "result", there was a statement I believe from her saying "in accordance with my contract I cannot say any more...".
You are making some strong statements about JS speaking to the press.
In my recollection she has not done much speaking at all. Most of the "speak" has been from BALPA, some pretty snowy baby pictures, and some statements via lawyers / at the tribunal probably vetted / cleared with BA.
Indeed, post the "result", there was a statement I believe from her saying "in accordance with my contract I cannot say any more...".
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As NoD says, JS does not comment, in fact she received a handful of calls from the press after the ruling which went along the lines of: "We know you can't say anything, but will you anyway or shall we call BALPA's press dept?" the answer of course being, call BALPA.
The source of this info was a conversation I had with SS, her other half.
The source of this info was a conversation I had with SS, her other half.
Last edited by overstress; 5th May 2005 at 21:29.
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Dave - did you ever get around to answering the question of whether or not taking 19 months off to have a baby confirmed that Ms Starmer was not serious about returning to her job? 19 months is really taking the p*** as has been said elsewhwere.
I can not help but feel that this whole exercise has been a mickey taking, financial fishing exercise on her part and that she has struck lucky.
I can not help but feel that this whole exercise has been a mickey taking, financial fishing exercise on her part and that she has struck lucky.
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moggiee
I'm not Dave (thank god!), but your question is really taking the p*** as to your basic knowledge of UK / EU law and biology.
From the DTI website:
So that's 52 weeks = 12 months, + BA's grounding her the moment she things she's expecting (7-8 months) + a little leave + some BA faffing to sort her "return to work" sims etc. = errrr.... about 19 months !
Dave - did you ever get around to answering the question of whether or not taking 19 months off to have a baby confirmed that Ms Starmer was not serious about returning to her job? 19 months is really taking the p*** as has been said elsewhwere.
From the DTI website:
Length of maternity leave
The length of ordinary maternity leave is increased and pregnant employees are entitled to 26 weeks’ ordinary maternity leave, regardless of how long they have worked for their employer.
Ordinary maternity leave is normally paid leave.
Women who have completed 26 weeks’ continuous service with their employer by the beginning of the 14th week before their EWC can take additional maternity leave. Additional maternity leave starts immediately after ordinary maternity leave and continues for a further 26 weeks.
Additional maternity leave is usually unpaid although a woman may have contractual rights to pay during her period of additional maternity leave.
The length of ordinary maternity leave is increased and pregnant employees are entitled to 26 weeks’ ordinary maternity leave, regardless of how long they have worked for their employer.
Ordinary maternity leave is normally paid leave.
Women who have completed 26 weeks’ continuous service with their employer by the beginning of the 14th week before their EWC can take additional maternity leave. Additional maternity leave starts immediately after ordinary maternity leave and continues for a further 26 weeks.
Additional maternity leave is usually unpaid although a woman may have contractual rights to pay during her period of additional maternity leave.
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Oh dear
Looks like we are heading for another 35 pages.
I live in Asia, (no applause expected for that), where the basic economic facts of life require in many cases both parents, including the professionally qualified, to work to survive.
Paid time off for pregancy is short, even in the more enlightened society Asia wise in which I live. In most other places it doesn't exist.
Here they get auntie, or grandma or sister or a paid maid to look after the kid. Maid paid out of Mums salary.
I realise that maids are more expensive in the UK but can not the Starmers get an au pair, since they are both earning decent salaries.
I cant remember Ms Starmer's specific motherhood requirements and I certainly can't be bothered to go back and look.
Ms Starmer, if you want to be a full time mother, play the game and retire.
If you want to be a part time mother and part time pilot, then pay for some domestic assistance and accept BA's terms or find another job.
Otherwise, one can only wonder if your "motherly instincts" are driven by less commendable motives
I hope I am being unfair.
Looks like we are heading for another 35 pages.
I live in Asia, (no applause expected for that), where the basic economic facts of life require in many cases both parents, including the professionally qualified, to work to survive.
Paid time off for pregancy is short, even in the more enlightened society Asia wise in which I live. In most other places it doesn't exist.
Here they get auntie, or grandma or sister or a paid maid to look after the kid. Maid paid out of Mums salary.
I realise that maids are more expensive in the UK but can not the Starmers get an au pair, since they are both earning decent salaries.
I cant remember Ms Starmer's specific motherhood requirements and I certainly can't be bothered to go back and look.
Ms Starmer, if you want to be a full time mother, play the game and retire.
If you want to be a part time mother and part time pilot, then pay for some domestic assistance and accept BA's terms or find another job.
Otherwise, one can only wonder if your "motherly instincts" are driven by less commendable motives
I hope I am being unfair.
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This is not to add any comments or thoughts, someone somewhere has probably said it already whatever it might be !
However, I think one ought to commend Dave for both using his real name and honestly fielding answers to these questions etc. We all have views or opinions on the subject . We pilots are fixers and doers so we have a solution. Unfortunately, we are sometimes less than knowledgable about the law as is, rather than as was! One can be surprised at just how impossible some of those solutions may be to impliment, even if one wanted because national legislation will not allow or, will require it to be done another way. Sometimes we may personally see it as in our favour and sometimes against. Life was ever thus and it is hard to see it being otherwise.
One can only hope that from this forum thread that there is an increased awareness and appreciation of the environment we now work in and why that is so and how that applied to this case.
However, I think one ought to commend Dave for both using his real name and honestly fielding answers to these questions etc. We all have views or opinions on the subject . We pilots are fixers and doers so we have a solution. Unfortunately, we are sometimes less than knowledgable about the law as is, rather than as was! One can be surprised at just how impossible some of those solutions may be to impliment, even if one wanted because national legislation will not allow or, will require it to be done another way. Sometimes we may personally see it as in our favour and sometimes against. Life was ever thus and it is hard to see it being otherwise.
One can only hope that from this forum thread that there is an increased awareness and appreciation of the environment we now work in and why that is so and how that applied to this case.
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Mac the Knife, interesting post. By the way, a few years ago I had a right nephrectomy and the surgeon was a part-timer! By his own admission, he was a little rusty and during the op he gave me an inadvertant pneumothorax. Agony.
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aarrhh, nurjio. . .
. . . . your topiary skills (see 'profile') should have meant a keen-eyed briefing afore the knife and a neat and proper stitching up to finish off.
Then again you can't always tell who's stitching up who. Isn't that the truth?
Besides, you got off a lot lighter than my little sister. They wheeled her in for an appendectomy and not long after the young anaesthetist wheeled her down the aisle. Appendectomy? Slipadicktomy?
(And this Joe ran a racehorse with the odd name of 'Caesarian'. It never ran too well, so why on earth did he keep telling us "She's a cut above the favourite, mate." ?
. . . . and if you don't stitch you up me darlin's. . . . nothing will.
Then again you can't always tell who's stitching up who. Isn't that the truth?
Besides, you got off a lot lighter than my little sister. They wheeled her in for an appendectomy and not long after the young anaesthetist wheeled her down the aisle. Appendectomy? Slipadicktomy?
(And this Joe ran a racehorse with the odd name of 'Caesarian'. It never ran too well, so why on earth did he keep telling us "She's a cut above the favourite, mate." ?
. . . . and if you don't stitch you up me darlin's. . . . nothing will.
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nurjio
Just out of interest, did your part-time surgeon who was "a little rusty" tell you he was part-time and a little rusty before or after you allowed him to remove your kidney?
Just out of interest, did your part-time surgeon who was "a little rusty" tell you he was part-time and a little rusty before or after you allowed him to remove your kidney?
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......did your part-time surgeon who was "a little rusty" tell you he was part-time and a little rusty before or after you allowed him to remove your kidney?
the lunatic fringe
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will a pilot tell us if they're part time before or after we allow them to remove our entire being to 35000ft and 0.8 times the speed of sound?
You could have a full time pilot that has been marginal all his career. Or a part time pilot that is exceptional. Not all Pilots are equal.
You would be better off demanding his training record.
L337
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More to the point, will a pilot tell us if they're part time before or after
Oh - and how about the CC? In fact, why don't we show you all our credentials / contracts, recency as you board, and then hold a vote....
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One aspect of the point I'm making is that even during normal ops part-timers will perform with less spare mental capacity than full-timers. I'm sure I don't need to explain that.
This situation is possibly all well and good in normal operation.
Not well and good if an emergency results in mental overload. Much more likely with part-timers.
Suggesting that marginal pilots who are also part time are definitely dodgy.
Before I leave for the airport, please. 
This situation is possibly all well and good in normal operation.
Not well and good if an emergency results in mental overload. Much more likely with part-timers.
You could have a full time pilot that has been marginal all his career. Or a part time pilot that is exceptional
......do you want me to include it in my welcome PA
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This will have no doubt been said elsewhere but...
I find 'society' in Britain today a bit namby pamby and employment law/legislation particularly weak.
We were interviewing for staff the other week and one female applicant wanted to know what the maternity arrangements were!!!
The buzz-word these days seems to be 'lifestyle choices'. People choose to have children, people choose to not have children, tax credits for married people, not for single people. baby bond, child allowance etc. When people have children it is a breeding thing. I doubt many people think '...ooh must go and pro-create, because if I don't the human race will die out...". No most people want children for various reasons; good or bad.
Why is it that not long after the baby is born so many 'loving mothers' hare back to work? I gather there is now a tax allowance for people to employ child minders/nanny so that the Mother of the child can deposit it elsewhere during the formative years and get back to work! To maintain the lifestyle they are accustomed to.
Having children is not a fashion accessory or commodity (although it seems that is what many seem to want/think).
My Mother stayed home to look after my brother, sister and myself. She did not begrudge not having a career, there were things in her life she would have done were she not a Mother, but she made a choice and stuck by that choice. As a family we were a single income household from 1945 until about 1974. The family produced a Grammar educated son who then took a degree, Further Education daughter, who now has two children and is a grand-mother herself (she followed in my Mother's footsteps), me Secondary Modern education and a degree.
We all have good jobs and a good relationship and love our families. Some may say this is a very Victorian attitude and out of touch with modern society, but a lifestyle choice was made before this pampering Maternity & Paternity leave idiocy was introduced.
Family is a responsibility, it requires sacrifice and commitment. If one is not prepared to accept that then don't go for it.
Would someone buy a puppy leave it with a stranger for up to 10 hours a day, play with it at weekends and as it grew up expect it to understand who was Boss?!
I find 'society' in Britain today a bit namby pamby and employment law/legislation particularly weak.
We were interviewing for staff the other week and one female applicant wanted to know what the maternity arrangements were!!!
The buzz-word these days seems to be 'lifestyle choices'. People choose to have children, people choose to not have children, tax credits for married people, not for single people. baby bond, child allowance etc. When people have children it is a breeding thing. I doubt many people think '...ooh must go and pro-create, because if I don't the human race will die out...". No most people want children for various reasons; good or bad.
Why is it that not long after the baby is born so many 'loving mothers' hare back to work? I gather there is now a tax allowance for people to employ child minders/nanny so that the Mother of the child can deposit it elsewhere during the formative years and get back to work! To maintain the lifestyle they are accustomed to.
Having children is not a fashion accessory or commodity (although it seems that is what many seem to want/think).
My Mother stayed home to look after my brother, sister and myself. She did not begrudge not having a career, there were things in her life she would have done were she not a Mother, but she made a choice and stuck by that choice. As a family we were a single income household from 1945 until about 1974. The family produced a Grammar educated son who then took a degree, Further Education daughter, who now has two children and is a grand-mother herself (she followed in my Mother's footsteps), me Secondary Modern education and a degree.
We all have good jobs and a good relationship and love our families. Some may say this is a very Victorian attitude and out of touch with modern society, but a lifestyle choice was made before this pampering Maternity & Paternity leave idiocy was introduced.
Family is a responsibility, it requires sacrifice and commitment. If one is not prepared to accept that then don't go for it.
Would someone buy a puppy leave it with a stranger for up to 10 hours a day, play with it at weekends and as it grew up expect it to understand who was Boss?!
the lunatic fringe
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One aspect of the point I'm making is that even during normal ops part-timers will perform with less spare mental capacity than full-timers. I'm sure I don't need to explain that.
Capacity is a function of a whole range of things. Just one of many is recency.
L337
Last edited by L337; 7th May 2005 at 10:35.
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One aspect of the point I'm making is that even during normal ops part-timers will perform with less spare mental capacity than full-timers. I'm sure I don't need to explain that.
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Capacity is a function of a whole range of things. Just one of many is recency.
The other factors could be discussed on another thread.
Recency/part-time working applies to this thread.
.......the "Full Timers" are all sh*gged out
As above, that's no reason to ignore the other end of the scale (part-time working) and it's effect upon safety.
Two red herrings...........two replies. Thank you.
Está servira para distraerle.
Now who were those authors in the last century, that's the twentieth, who wrote that the human race should have baby farms?
Damned if I can remember; but the general idea was that selected females of a somewhat genetic pulchritude would be placed in rather nice surroundings in order to procreate for the continued fulfillment of the human race while everyone else worked hard to guarentee a future for us all.
There was some military chappie or other who had the same excellent idea.He always wore an Iron Cross, which he had, quite deservedly, won somewhere. Always thought that a darn good idea. Can't understand why it's never been put into practice. There seems to be ample justification for its initiation bearing in mind this last case of sexual vicissitude. Instigate then-Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst- please do.
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I can assure those who are interested that last July when I flew 48 S/H sectors in & out of LHR for BA I didn't feel rusty at all, let alone a 75% part-timer. Commiserations to my full-time colleagues though.