Damages
 

If BA wins substantial damages from BALPA can the membership be made individually liable?

No, as you are neither unlimited shareholders nor a partnership of the union

Can managers at BA be sued individually ?

Frangatang, if you are crew in any capacity you will know with EU legislation that our hours run til chocks on, plus clear time. I believe from your tone you do not fly. What is your position in our "ONE TEAM" company that leads you to believe our pay needs to be addressed?

Yes, but they are covered by corporate liability insurance, so will not suffer personally for losses caused by successful litigation

re heat does that include acting in a reckless manner ?

For the record...... The cabin crew strike threat is NOT about pay! There are over 20 points that BASSA have raised concern over (non of which are wages). They relate to the fact that ba have not honored the agreements made at the last ballot re sickness proceadure etc. Also ba breaking agreements for example 2 LHR longhaul pursers with a seniority of 2006!!! Just happens they are firends of a manager and ex managers from LGW!

I write on this occasion as a sad 10 year Gold Exec, who has tried despite the troubles to be a loyal customer of this once proud National carrier. True, my allegiance is derived to some extent from a reluctance to relinquish my hard won perks, but over the years even these have become severely eroded, as BA has withdrawn from so many Regional terminals. At many fields one is now left sitting amongst the LoCo passengers whilst FlyBe sit in the former Terraces looking down on the BA lowlife, as in former times we did to them. I had the dubious priviledge of being the first domestic passenger to use T5, and needless to say I did not get home, that night, and worse still the whole system, not just baggaged collapsed completely. I ended up with another Goldie making our own arrangements to travel across to LGW and take the early morning Jet2 home as there was absolutely no customer support available (I am still waiting to hear about being compensated for this, not even an acknowledgment of receipt of my receipts!). This on the back of a steady decline in the quality of service and punctuality/reliability over at least 5 years with punctality down at 65% from 75% 4 years ago, compared with EZY who have improved from 65% to almost 80%. I agree that BA management are diabolical. I aslo note that almost all staff groups shown on the CAA document are paid more than in other airlines. From the perspective of SLF, I really no longer care which side is right or wrong. If you ruin my family's travel plans over the summer with industrial action for me and your other premium rate customers, this will be the last straw. I will bite the bullet and start building from the bottom up my allegiance with another carrier. Please see sense before it is too late.

Balpa Ballot -T5
 

martinidoc
 

I'm alway sorry to hear of situations like yours. Unlike, it would appear, further up the food chain in BA I realise that it is continued custom like yours which supports this airline and ultimately pays my wages. I cannot though make an appeal to keep your custom because the deterioration in your executive club perks, on-board product and the management of our infrastructure are items I have no control over and are another area where my opinion to those who can is be-littled or simply ignored as unqualified. Neither am I prepared to cease my efforts to maintain the terms and conditions I have and payment I recieve. Please concider that no BA employee is in dispute with the company for more money or to improve their T&C's. I know I am among the highest paid cabin crew in the UK, that's why I applied to work for BA, and that will be the same for all staff compared to other UK airlines. But getting into BA wasn't easy and there is/was a reason for the higher payment. BA has hacked me off, my colleagues off and more importantly our customer base off in pursuit of a 10% profit margin, which as Mr Walsh has conceded, is not maintainable. I am annoyed that BA want to save money from me when I see that no of the savings are being used to improve the airline. This company has lost the loyalty of its staff under Mr Walsh and is now losing loyal customers, but none of this matters as long as we achieve 10% this year. I'm only a humble steward but I know the value of loyal and repeat custom to a business and will do my bit to achieve this goal. But asking me not to consider industrial action as a very final means of dispute resolution means that not only will I be losing out for Mr Walsh's 10% follie and mistakes but also paying to keep customers.

Strikes at BA
 

I have upmost respect for our customers, they of course pay well for the serivices we provide. Indeed, generally the people that fly BA are 'generally' the more understanding of society. This is why i get puzzled when they think that staff continually threatening to strike at BA is the ;staffs fault'.

Surely our paxs must ask themselves why do BA staff continually ballot to strike?

THe reason is, BA has a system of promote your mate, secret clubs and funny handshakes to get on. The management layers get filled with back scratchers with little competancy. The staff realtions suffer at the hands of this dysfunctional management and results in very poor industrial relations. Indeed Mr Walsh's hiring of union busters shortly after his arrival hasn't helped, aggressive individuals who like to play hardball with the Unions.

many people think BA is a laughing stock, I'd say more of a running joke.

If it were gentlemanly world, I'd wholeheartedly agree. But is it really inappropriate for BALPA to say "As you have probably read in the news, pilots' pays are a great burden to our company. Sadly our calculations show that even if we worked for free, our operating costs would be lowered by only _______ (insert correct percentage, guaranteed to be lower than 2 here)" or "We support our management's commitment to cost cutting but even if we worked for free, it would take us about year and half just to offset costs incurred by our dear MGT disobeying the law"?

Average BA pilot's pay of 100 000 pounds was severe exaggeration and total amount paid to pilots last year by BA was nearer to 200 megapounds than 300. Expenditure per pilot, quoted by CAA as being 97 600 pounds, includes, but is not limited to: gross pay, pension contributions, ground refreshers, simulator time, uniforms and downroute hotels.