BALPA and BA talks breakdown

[Tandemrotor]

Maggiefly

I believe BASSA are indeed soon balloting for strike action. However...

It has nothing whatsoever to do with Open Skies! They have other issues to deal with, and in my humble opinion, are only just cottoning on to how OS may affect them!

There is absolutely NO recruitment ban for cabin crew, which of course there is for pilots. (Making anyone applying as a pilot, a 'scab') Neither do BASSA have any agreements to prevent recruitment into OL.

I don't quite know if they would be able to 'raise an army' over this issue, should they decide it's worth fighting! Reading between the lines, and making some big assumptions, I imagine you're pretty safe.

Perhaps you could ask this on the cabin crew forum?

Hope you have a better work pattern (and T&Cs) than the pilots!

411A This user is on your Ignore List

And relax...

[Maggiefly]

Thanks for that. It does make me feel better. There is a thread on the cabin crew section but only a couple of replies. I thought you guys might know more.

If it means anything, you have my full support. My husband is a pilot (corporate) and we'd happily donate some money to your strike fund.

And yes the terms and conditions are VASTLY better than over here. Nearly twice as much money and much better vaction time etc.,

Good luck to you and yours.

[M.Mouse]

I think that expecting BALPA to have foreseen the regulatory changes which have enabled OpenLies is unreasonable.

BASSA have a record of being very blinkered in their thinking and planning. They have no agreements relevant to OpenLies which would enable them to have any involvement whatsoever. They are possibly too short sighted to care either. For many years they have protected the outrageously outdated situation at LHR and cared little about anywhere else. For an example a look at LGW CC, the working agreements and salaries there says it all.

[jetset lady]

Maggiefly,

As a member of BASSA and also CC at LGW, I'm afraid I have to agree with both M.Mouse and Tandemrotor. In the past, BASSA have been very blinkered. However, following some changes at the top, things seem to be changing for the better with BASSA now able to see past the end of the golden runways. I won't go into it in detail as this is the pointy end thread but feel free to PM me with any questions you may have. Having been in a similar situation with another airline, I have been able to see the danger OS poses to us and have followed the situation from the start. Thanks to the flight crew that have been happy to sit and explain it all to me, I think/hope I have a fairly good grasp on whats going on.

Good luck in whatever you decide.

JSL

[goldcard60]

Quite unbelievable

I am absolutely amazed that a group that calls themselves "Professionals" can even contemplate holding the travelling public to ransom in the 21st Century. I used to have some respect for pilots at British Airways, indeed I travel exclusively with your airline when I'm not using private transport.

I am sure your dispute is genuine and you are not all following in the hallowed footsteps of your working class colleagues, but surely there must be another way? I am not angry at you as a group, just incredibly dissappointed. My anger is directed at BA management.

As for BA management, who seem to be pretty feckless at the best of times, how can you allow this to happen? As a leader in a large concern, I would never allow the future of my business, or indeed the welfare of other employees to be at the hands of a few. Do surgeons or lawyers hold their employers to ransom? No, and that's because they are managed by intelligent people that would never allow that situation to arise. So why have BA management been so negligent?

I won't do the usual thing and threaten to take my business elsewhere, because I take pride in flying British as an expat (do you still see yourselves as such?) But this is exactly why I cannot stand living in a country that allows this sort of carry on.

This company needs to modernise or it will die. And I for one will be very sad when that happens.

[al446]

I don't understand where you are going with this Goldcard. You open by condemning pilots for holding the public to ransom then slate BA management.
As Spock would say "This is illogical captain".

[KC135777]

Goldcard60,

Management greed is STILL alive and well in the 21st Century.

If they could turn the (labor/management) clocks back 100+ years, you can be sure, they WOULD do it.

It IS quite unfortunate. But, it is the ultimate leverage for any organized group of workers.

Pilots are the most customer conscious, can-do, proactive, problem-solvers (almost 'management-like'), and goal-oriented employees on the property at airlines. It's part of the innate personality of pilots, due to the background/training in a life & death profession as piloting is.

Anyway, management at ALL airlines takes FULL advantage of the above personality qualities of pilots. This advantage of management has allowed them to keep wages WELL below inflation for 20+ years, and degrade work rules (T&Cs) too.

Pilots have had ENOUGH. IF the 'ultimate' leverage is utilized, then you can blame management, because they will have vastly underestimated pilot unity and resolve. Or, if not, then they make the decision to allow a strike, with the idea that they'll ultimately win, by wearing down pilot unity.

KC135777
AA pilot

[Human Factor]

Goldcard,

....but surely there must be another way?

I share your disappointment. As I have asked on various threads, if anyone can come up with an alternative to going on strike, I have no doubt both BALPA and BA would be prepared to listen as they have both exhausted all the other avenues. This alternative would of course have to ensure that the pilots were not going to be shafted by BA at some point in the future.

Your third paragraph sums it all up very neatly IMHO. BA suffers from confrontational management who give the impression that working with their employees is a sign of weakness. The fact that those (few) upper echelon managers are now fighting for their careers speaks volumes about how out of touch they have become over the years. Heads will certainly roll when this is all over, simply because it has got to the stage we currently find ourselves in and no-one will be prepared to work with them afterwards. If the strike goes ahead, it will merely speed up this process. I would like to hope that BA will learn a valuable lesson as a result and we won't find ourselves in this situation again.

[KC135777]

There are plenty of alternatives out there.
Interest based bargaining is just one.
There are many fancy names for them.
Union- busting techniques/programs- all of them.
They are DESIGNED to soften the resolve of labor, period.
They are designed by management consultants ( "mediation experts" ).
Management loves to introduce them, because they help soften labor and
create and enhance management / labor "relationships". This is basically
the Stockholm Syndrome, we're talking about here. So, labor can help "feel" management's pain, and "come over, farther" to their side of thinking.

Management's "numbers" (financial figures) are fantasy.
The manipulative ability of management to play w/ the numbers, and/or
project interpretation of those numbers is infinite (almost).
In other words, "liars figure, & figures lie".

Pilots (around the world) have had enough!

The KISS principle will work well again.
(Keep It Simple, Stupid)

KC135777

[Flying Grasshopper]

KC135777

For God's sake go and get a life!

[Oldjet Jockey]

What happened to team spirit?

I have watched this thread for a long time wondering whether to make a contibution. I am now approaching 80 years old and have given up flying as a pilot and even as SLF. I have always had great respect for the standard of BA flight crews but now there is too much hassle with the necessary security and overcrowded airports for an old man to cope with.

Before starting my aviation career that lasted 42 years I trained to be a Chartered Accountant. My company was appointed as receivers in the bankrupcy of one of the old Clyde side shipbuilders.I was sent to sort out the financial state of the company. I found that they had lost many shipbuilding orders due to long delays in delivery and high costs. The problem had been that after the 39/45 war shipbuilders in other parts of the world had modernised their methods. One example being the introduction of welding in place of riveting. The British riviters union refused to accept changes and re-training of their members and called for strike action. The result was further delays and increased costs. The union claimed victory when the management gave in to their demands. A victory perhaps for that small battle but a loss of the war when shipping companies preferred to place their orders elsewhere. The result was bankruptcy and the loss of the jobs of all the tradesmen in the company.

What then was really the cause of the disaster. IMHO it was the fact that the management and unions were not working together as a TEAM. Management had failed to enlighten the unions and their members of what was happening outside their immediate yards in other parts of the world. The unions could only think of retaining the Ts&Cs of their members and were incapable of looking at the wider picture and so the inevitable happened.

Where management and unions each regard the other as enemies rather than essential parts of a team there will be little or no hope of a solution that will benefit the futures of all concerned. At one time in my aviation career I was elected as a local union representative. Management put forward a proposal for a small change of working conditions that would benefit the service with no loss of income for us and only a small loss of perks that we really haddn't deserved anyway. I went for the first time to a national union meeting and said that I thought the management proposal should be accepted. I was howled down and told in no uncertain terms that unions should never ever accept a management proposal however good or resonable as the management would see this as weakness. In other words management should always be considered as the enemy. I resigned as union rep and resigned from the union.

I see from this thread that the same old attitudes still persist and I am not trying to take sides here. I am sure that the management are not working as members of a TEAM and neither are BALPA. Both have dug into their entrenched positions and are treating each other as enemies. To find a solution both must start acting as members of a TEAM and look beyond the short term local issues and realise what is going on in the big world outside BA.

The British shipbuilding business that was once the best in the world failed to do just that. Where now are the big ships build? No longer on the Clyde.

I hope I haven't bored you with my personal experiences and wish you a satifactory settlement of this dispute. Despite what you may think of management at BA, they too have a role to play. They are far from perfect but do try to convince them that only by working together as a team and looking at the wider picture you will all have a sound future.

OJJ

[KC135777]

KC135777
For God's sake go and get a life!
-------------------------------------------

I have one, thank you very much.

Back to the discussion- is there anything I've said that you'd like to refute?

KC135777

[Housewife-43]

As a passenger I realise that you won't necessarily agree with my point of view, but I want to give it anyway.

I work for a Company whose management style is confrontational at best. The MD's mantra is "I don't have to do it, I'm not going to do it". He gives his staff nothing and expects us to work any number of hours unpaid overtime in return. In short, I have every sympathy with you as BA Pilots.

However, this threat of action and this level of industrial unrest is doing the airline no good whatsoever. We have just returned from our annual skiing trip to the States, having left not knowing how/when we would be returning. From chatting to other holidaymakers there I can tell you categorically that the travelling public are not enamoured with BA. Shortly before we left for holiday there had been difficulties at the airport and passengers were told to fly without their luggage, whilst this was a fault of BAA and not BA, it was the airline that carried the can for it. I spoke with one family whose luggage had gone astray, and who then had to hire skis. I spoke with someone else who told me that an entire return flight to the UK had been cancelled, causing untold inconvenience to people.

I truly hope that you can reach a resolution with BA, but if this unrest continues, and if industrial action, or the threat of action, occurs in the future it will sound the death knell to BA. The paying public simply will not tolerate it.

In the past BA has had the monopoly on routes, this is set to change this year and the public will vote with their feet.

[Fork Handles]

The indignation of some of the pax on here about holding them to ransom, ruining their plans etc etc absolutely baffles me. . WTF. It seems being able to fly is a god given right and should be protected at any cost. Flying is a private commercial agreement and costs money. Its not your right like the NHS. Pilots have livelyhoods and futures to think about . It is not a proscibed profession for industrial action.You are not entitled to fly. ITS NOT YOUR RIGHT so spare me the professional responsibilty stuff. You get that in droves when you are not dead at the end of a flight.
Any other issue with your travel is the responsibility of the piss poor management, mitigated by the the extra mile from crew.

[Housewife-43]

My mistake Fork Handles. I thought that having made a reservation and paid the fare I could expect the airline to convey me to and from my destination.

I'll remember that next time we fly.

Good luck on the dole queue.

[Monty77]

Fork Handles

You sound like a British Rail union activist from the 1970s.

What happened to them?

Yes, I will have fries with that, thanks.

[KC135777]

Housewife-43: "...threat of action and this level of industrial unrest is doing the airline no good whatsoever..."
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Generically speaking, management "comes around" when it is more expensive NOT to negotiate in good faith. Until then, they just don't have the financial motivation to.

KC135777

[Housewife-43]

KC135777 - Like all management, they do only what they have to and only when they have to.

[Amigoflyer]

OpenSkies is;

Wholly owned by BA

Will use BA planes

Will use BA support

Will be overseen by senior BA managers

But will not use BA pilots

Simple solution;

BA PLANE/BA PILOT

THE END

[merlinxx]

Simple

KEEP THE FAITH FOLKS