john frohnsdorff elected BALPA General Secretary
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Lets just be honest. We in BA want a strike. We want a 20% basic pay rise accross the board to put us back to where we were a decade ago.
easyJet and Ryanair are paying their pilots more over the first 20 years of their careers than BA are.
For the standards and hassle and working environment that BA imposes they should pay a premium. We are never going to get that by being nice. So lets be nasty.
Damn it. Their aircraft don't fly without us. Their revenue stream dies without us. BA is weak at the moment they have no cash and a lot of analyst focus upon them. NOW is the time to strike.
BA are not going to go bankrupt over a tiny increase in their operating costs which a 20% pilot pay increase impose. They aren't.
I say Balerics to Waterside and all the scum therein. WE run this airline. WE move the pax from A to B which generates the ticker sales. WE should dictate - yes dictate - what goes on in BA. Not BASSA. Not Rod.
If the removal of communist unilateral dissarminst socialist Darke makes us more militant then so much the better.
The cadets have been screwed for years. Eurogatwick have been crewed for years. Regional have been screwed. CitiExpress are being screwed. Golden Runways will be next and they must not stick their heads in the sand. Forunately with the retirement of so many LHR barons the balanace of opinion and militancy is changing.
Johns stalking horse will result in a more combatitive GS who will in turn alter the position of all CC's.
Good.
Peter - yes I do work for Mainline but champion the low costs.
easyJet and Ryanair are paying their pilots more over the first 20 years of their careers than BA are.
For the standards and hassle and working environment that BA imposes they should pay a premium. We are never going to get that by being nice. So lets be nasty.
Damn it. Their aircraft don't fly without us. Their revenue stream dies without us. BA is weak at the moment they have no cash and a lot of analyst focus upon them. NOW is the time to strike.
BA are not going to go bankrupt over a tiny increase in their operating costs which a 20% pilot pay increase impose. They aren't.
I say Balerics to Waterside and all the scum therein. WE run this airline. WE move the pax from A to B which generates the ticker sales. WE should dictate - yes dictate - what goes on in BA. Not BASSA. Not Rod.
If the removal of communist unilateral dissarminst socialist Darke makes us more militant then so much the better.
The cadets have been screwed for years. Eurogatwick have been crewed for years. Regional have been screwed. CitiExpress are being screwed. Golden Runways will be next and they must not stick their heads in the sand. Forunately with the retirement of so many LHR barons the balanace of opinion and militancy is changing.
Johns stalking horse will result in a more combatitive GS who will in turn alter the position of all CC's.
Good.
Peter - yes I do work for Mainline but champion the low costs.
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As Mr Judkins,( thanks for saying who you are, can at least find you for a beer now!) says we could go on for ages, so I am not going to fill up broad band ! View points differ, long may it be so. I was not saying anyone was ignorant and I am no guru on industrial law either, so thanks for the reference ! If all have read it (I have not!) great, you know what is coming. All I feel is that it is not something you do lightly, you have to be smart and use logic or you get taken to the cleaners. If there is a good plan , great, but just a "lets have a strike" is probably not a sound basis for one. "We need something and we have tried all else to no effect and have now gotten to a brick wall and this is the only way we can express our determination and we are prepared for it so as to have every probability of succeeding" , now that is something else!
As to no election for CD, until JF came along as an alternative, it is pretty average practise in most outfits like BALPA to continue on with what you have and if uncontested not bother with a members vote. You would have all been pissed of to have had a ballot expense that gave an option of zero choice I assume ! Anyone who reads the rules and wants to put forward someone as a candidate can, there is no veto. Perhaps it being done at the very last moment so to speak, caused some of the perceived problems. As it was contested, rightly a vote was taken.
As to the mechanics of replacement, the time issue is just mechanics. We must and no doubt will get a new Gen Sec of high calibre, I never said that the ultimate replacement was going to be a crap candidate, but even JF admits that he is not a candidate for permanent Gen Sec so whatever his skills, they are not intended to be the ones we use in other than the short term. So, 2 months as JF says to find someone, then go through the ballot process, production, voting etc, I think that takes about 2 months based on the last one. So now 4 months from now we have an elected candidate, who we assume has a job to give up. Minimum notice, probably a month , but could be longer, 3 or even 6, hence the basis of my statement that we have at least 5 months to go before ewe get the person in place. Nice if we members actually get a choice on the ballot paper , otherwise terms like "stitch up" may start re-appearing!
As to the article in the Log about rest. It was written the way it was to deal with off duty activity and was the result of concern expressed to BALPA about off duty activities and adverse effects on rest. It was not intended to address the duty aspects at all. That is an FTL issue and your CC, who negotiate your FTL scheme, which all of us hope does not and should not lead to you becoming fatigued due to your working practise. If it does then we need to do something about it and fast! By the way, there is a definition ofr this which is broadly that there is tiredness, which happens after say a normal day , whether just up late at a party or working and fatigue which cannot be countered by normal rest. However the article was not written about duty, read it again, it is about what people do on their days off. It is written to encompass everything for a definite reason. That is because if certain activities which could be tiring and of interest to some, who for example read this forum, were to be specified, then some others would have them included in duty time. As most of us seem to be working hard anyway and have little spare time available to legally increase our duty times, then some of those specified activities would be effectively stopped! If you want to send me an E- mail I can more directly answer what I am getting at, but who knows who reads this ?
Hopefully the last communication from me on the Gen Sec issue !! Thanks to all the readers, fly safe!!
Martin Alder
As to no election for CD, until JF came along as an alternative, it is pretty average practise in most outfits like BALPA to continue on with what you have and if uncontested not bother with a members vote. You would have all been pissed of to have had a ballot expense that gave an option of zero choice I assume ! Anyone who reads the rules and wants to put forward someone as a candidate can, there is no veto. Perhaps it being done at the very last moment so to speak, caused some of the perceived problems. As it was contested, rightly a vote was taken.
As to the mechanics of replacement, the time issue is just mechanics. We must and no doubt will get a new Gen Sec of high calibre, I never said that the ultimate replacement was going to be a crap candidate, but even JF admits that he is not a candidate for permanent Gen Sec so whatever his skills, they are not intended to be the ones we use in other than the short term. So, 2 months as JF says to find someone, then go through the ballot process, production, voting etc, I think that takes about 2 months based on the last one. So now 4 months from now we have an elected candidate, who we assume has a job to give up. Minimum notice, probably a month , but could be longer, 3 or even 6, hence the basis of my statement that we have at least 5 months to go before ewe get the person in place. Nice if we members actually get a choice on the ballot paper , otherwise terms like "stitch up" may start re-appearing!
As to the article in the Log about rest. It was written the way it was to deal with off duty activity and was the result of concern expressed to BALPA about off duty activities and adverse effects on rest. It was not intended to address the duty aspects at all. That is an FTL issue and your CC, who negotiate your FTL scheme, which all of us hope does not and should not lead to you becoming fatigued due to your working practise. If it does then we need to do something about it and fast! By the way, there is a definition ofr this which is broadly that there is tiredness, which happens after say a normal day , whether just up late at a party or working and fatigue which cannot be countered by normal rest. However the article was not written about duty, read it again, it is about what people do on their days off. It is written to encompass everything for a definite reason. That is because if certain activities which could be tiring and of interest to some, who for example read this forum, were to be specified, then some others would have them included in duty time. As most of us seem to be working hard anyway and have little spare time available to legally increase our duty times, then some of those specified activities would be effectively stopped! If you want to send me an E- mail I can more directly answer what I am getting at, but who knows who reads this ?
Hopefully the last communication from me on the Gen Sec issue !! Thanks to all the readers, fly safe!!
Martin Alder
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High Volt,
I do have broadband, sorry to be long-winded. I can reassure you I am taking up residence in the new BACouncil Forum. Just felt the need to wrap things up a bit here first.
Peter,
Agree BA are no-where near going bust. Before we boar non-BA people here, I am trying to move posts on this issue to the BACouncil Forum. However this might be slightly interesting for everyone including doom monsters, Rod in todays paper says;
"Would even a mini-repeat of 11 September kill BA?
Eddington reckons BA's buffers are so strong that it would have to be 'twice as bad as 11 September or the Gulf War' - if that is imaginable - in order to scupper the carrier by blasting a £2bn hole in its revenues. He reckons BA has £1.2bn of cash reserves 'to hand', £600m in available (banking) facilities together with 'substantial assets that we could liquidate if we wanted to' - and is nowhere near even contemplating a rights issue.
Martin, keep up the good work in the LOG.
Bye ye-All !!!!!
I do have broadband, sorry to be long-winded. I can reassure you I am taking up residence in the new BACouncil Forum. Just felt the need to wrap things up a bit here first.
Peter,
Agree BA are no-where near going bust. Before we boar non-BA people here, I am trying to move posts on this issue to the BACouncil Forum. However this might be slightly interesting for everyone including doom monsters, Rod in todays paper says;
"Would even a mini-repeat of 11 September kill BA?
Eddington reckons BA's buffers are so strong that it would have to be 'twice as bad as 11 September or the Gulf War' - if that is imaginable - in order to scupper the carrier by blasting a £2bn hole in its revenues. He reckons BA has £1.2bn of cash reserves 'to hand', £600m in available (banking) facilities together with 'substantial assets that we could liquidate if we wanted to' - and is nowhere near even contemplating a rights issue.
Martin, keep up the good work in the LOG.
Bye ye-All !!!!!
Controversial, moi?
airrage
Your naivete is touching. Do you expect the CEO of a major public company to say that it is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy?
The share price is a reflection of how strong the city view BA (under £2.00 again).
It will be a brave soul who goes on strike at the moment and despite all the rhetoric how many would actually strike? I often hear the opinion that many would vote for a strike but when push comes to shove they say they would not actually walk out.
Didn't Sabena pilots strike the day before they went bankrupt? Then there was Swissair.
But it couldn't happen to BA now could it?
Your naivete is touching. Do you expect the CEO of a major public company to say that it is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy?
The share price is a reflection of how strong the city view BA (under £2.00 again).
It will be a brave soul who goes on strike at the moment and despite all the rhetoric how many would actually strike? I often hear the opinion that many would vote for a strike but when push comes to shove they say they would not actually walk out.
Didn't Sabena pilots strike the day before they went bankrupt? Then there was Swissair.
But it couldn't happen to BA now could it?
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Mouse,
Let me ask you, "Do you expect the CEO of a major public company to lie about his balance sheet when it is easily verifiable from results announced last month." RE is not lieing in this case, I can assure you.
Naivete would be someone who believes his managers that a pay rise is not possible whilst their balance sheet proves otherwise. The price of ones share is not directly proportional to it's balance sheet or asset value. That is why some growth shares trade on a value 100times their earnings and multiples of asset value whilst other value shares(manufacturers)can trade at as little as 4times earnings and only 40% of their asset value. The city's view and BA's share price is irrelevant in discussing how much BA can actually afford to pay its pilots as opposed to what it says it can pay. In this respect I can assure you I am not naive.
I could spend ages discussing Sabena or SwissAir with you, but again it would be as irrelevant a discussing Pan Am or Freedy Laker. Either you work for BA as a manager(doubt it with your knowledge of finances)and want to spread fear or you suffer from small-airline syndrome. I am willing to hear and debate any logical-based arguements about BA's finances, I'm afraid Mouse you haven't provided any.
As for how many people will go on strike, I wonder how many people thought CD wouldn't get voted out. Activism is alive and has reared it's ugly head.
Let me ask you, "Do you expect the CEO of a major public company to lie about his balance sheet when it is easily verifiable from results announced last month." RE is not lieing in this case, I can assure you.
Naivete would be someone who believes his managers that a pay rise is not possible whilst their balance sheet proves otherwise. The price of ones share is not directly proportional to it's balance sheet or asset value. That is why some growth shares trade on a value 100times their earnings and multiples of asset value whilst other value shares(manufacturers)can trade at as little as 4times earnings and only 40% of their asset value. The city's view and BA's share price is irrelevant in discussing how much BA can actually afford to pay its pilots as opposed to what it says it can pay. In this respect I can assure you I am not naive.
I could spend ages discussing Sabena or SwissAir with you, but again it would be as irrelevant a discussing Pan Am or Freedy Laker. Either you work for BA as a manager(doubt it with your knowledge of finances)and want to spread fear or you suffer from small-airline syndrome. I am willing to hear and debate any logical-based arguements about BA's finances, I'm afraid Mouse you haven't provided any.
As for how many people will go on strike, I wonder how many people thought CD wouldn't get voted out. Activism is alive and has reared it's ugly head.
Per Ardua ad Astraeus
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TO ALL BA PILOTS
Can I make a plea please for discussion of 777 bunks, BA profit & loss/financial strengths & weaknesses/BA pilot industrial action etc etc drone drone to be discussed EITHER
on the BA forum on pprune (on which I am a moderator) OR preferably
on the BA BALPA Council Internet site?
This is boring the pants off ME, and I hate to think what it is doing to the rest of the world!
This whole re-election process and JF's decision to stand was undertaken to allow a democratic choice for ALL BALPA members, and that is what should be discussed here on this thread.
Pages and pages of soporific BA stuff do nothing for the above!
on the BA forum on pprune (on which I am a moderator) OR preferably
on the BA BALPA Council Internet site?
This is boring the pants off ME, and I hate to think what it is doing to the rest of the world!
This whole re-election process and JF's decision to stand was undertaken to allow a democratic choice for ALL BALPA members, and that is what should be discussed here on this thread.
Pages and pages of soporific BA stuff do nothing for the above!
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"BA profit & loss/financial strengths & weaknesses/BA pilot industrial action etc etc drone drone to be discussed....."
BOAC
This is a perfect place to discuss the above. I can't see what harm it could possibly do. I am looking forward to the day when BA pilots decide to go on strike - they will have my full support. If you find it boring then simply do not tune in ! I for one would not miss this for anything !
BOAC
This is a perfect place to discuss the above. I can't see what harm it could possibly do. I am looking forward to the day when BA pilots decide to go on strike - they will have my full support. If you find it boring then simply do not tune in ! I for one would not miss this for anything !
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Martin
Thanks for your response. I am completely aware that the article was highlighting the responsibilities of not resting properly on days off.
My point is that I found this annoying at a time when our rostering is a MUCH bigger problem and Balpa is finding it difficult if not impossible to even discuss the subject with the company.
I posted here because I too believe that a much harder line is needed to stop them contemptuously ignoring this and practically every other issue.
I will email you.
Thanks for your response. I am completely aware that the article was highlighting the responsibilities of not resting properly on days off.
My point is that I found this annoying at a time when our rostering is a MUCH bigger problem and Balpa is finding it difficult if not impossible to even discuss the subject with the company.
I posted here because I too believe that a much harder line is needed to stop them contemptuously ignoring this and practically every other issue.
I will email you.
Per Ardua ad Astraeus
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Martin,
Just want to take you on over a bit of procedure, here... you said earlier that it impossible to have a democratic debate in a secret society; forgive me, I would have cut and pasted your exact words but, er.... couldn't find them up there!
You may well have a valid point, but unfortunately that is the nature of the lions den you've entered (very strongly, I may add) into here. If people wish to remain anonymous then please learn work around that. Working out the level of veracity, or it's opposite, of contributors speaking apparently knowledgeably on boards such as this is simply one of the skills one acquires to use them most effectively. It is not learnt overnight, it is learnt through exposure.
So whilst you have chosen to shake off the shackles (as you see them) of anonymity, please respect the wishes of others to remain thus. Often such a strategy can lead to people raising points they otherwise would not have done. I pulled completely out of any meaningful debate on the Compuserve forum many years ago due to an increasing feeling of justifiable paranoia about attaching my name to any views of "militancy."
Yes, you do know me, by the way, you did a couple of my 320 conversion sims. I will, and do tell people over a beer who I am if they exhibit any interest in the site , but it a/ isn't exactly rocket science to work it out within the company, and b/ I choose not to broadcast it too publicly
Despite the long-winded nature of many of the posts here the underlying quality of the debate is very high indeed.
Regards, £6
Just want to take you on over a bit of procedure, here... you said earlier that it impossible to have a democratic debate in a secret society; forgive me, I would have cut and pasted your exact words but, er.... couldn't find them up there!
You may well have a valid point, but unfortunately that is the nature of the lions den you've entered (very strongly, I may add) into here. If people wish to remain anonymous then please learn work around that. Working out the level of veracity, or it's opposite, of contributors speaking apparently knowledgeably on boards such as this is simply one of the skills one acquires to use them most effectively. It is not learnt overnight, it is learnt through exposure.
So whilst you have chosen to shake off the shackles (as you see them) of anonymity, please respect the wishes of others to remain thus. Often such a strategy can lead to people raising points they otherwise would not have done. I pulled completely out of any meaningful debate on the Compuserve forum many years ago due to an increasing feeling of justifiable paranoia about attaching my name to any views of "militancy."
Yes, you do know me, by the way, you did a couple of my 320 conversion sims. I will, and do tell people over a beer who I am if they exhibit any interest in the site , but it a/ isn't exactly rocket science to work it out within the company, and b/ I choose not to broadcast it too publicly
Despite the long-winded nature of many of the posts here the underlying quality of the debate is very high indeed.
Regards, £6
Last edited by Sick Squid; 1st Jul 2002 at 13:45.
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As a newcomer to these, have not yet worked out who is who, hopeless at cross words too ! Anonymity has its plae, e.g. CHIRP, but one would hope that in thsi debate we would keep a reasonable tone, which as you mentioned , was just a tad aggressive ! That seesm to be aproblem with anon. debates, as you can make all kinds of wild and unsubstantiated claims which you cannot be called to task on. For example the BALP yacht, which I belieev was paid for ona BAPLA credit card as the most convenient way at the time and all costs FULLY re-imbursed after wards and recorded as such. Have we all not had to do something similar, even if it was only borrowing the change given to us for an errand set by our parents and re-paying it when we got home ?
Looks like this debate is about over. I will now get time to do some more technical stuff ! By the way, for any readers, if your company does not have a technical section for BALPA , BA has a Technical Liason Committee, then please encourage people to let us know at BALPA tech what ails you. We cannot mind read, but if you can contact us we will do our best to get something sorted or offer the best advice we can. I ahd not realised this was not happening until one of you kindly wrote to me in an E-mail , mentiong the issue almost as an aside, but it was an serious issue which I am now tackling.
Regards
all
Martin A
P.S keep the debates going, try not to get aggressive, get hard facts whenever you can, does not look good if we get worked up on modified rumours. Perhaps a way of indicating level of confidence of what you have heard, As an example. Sunrise in East level 1, Britney Spears is still a virgin, level ? with a symbol to alert us?
Looks like this debate is about over. I will now get time to do some more technical stuff ! By the way, for any readers, if your company does not have a technical section for BALPA , BA has a Technical Liason Committee, then please encourage people to let us know at BALPA tech what ails you. We cannot mind read, but if you can contact us we will do our best to get something sorted or offer the best advice we can. I ahd not realised this was not happening until one of you kindly wrote to me in an E-mail , mentiong the issue almost as an aside, but it was an serious issue which I am now tackling.
Regards
all
Martin A
P.S keep the debates going, try not to get aggressive, get hard facts whenever you can, does not look good if we get worked up on modified rumours. Perhaps a way of indicating level of confidence of what you have heard, As an example. Sunrise in East level 1, Britney Spears is still a virgin, level ? with a symbol to alert us?
