Ask not what your union can do for you... discuss.

[excrab]

Years ago, when I became an airline captain in the UK I elected to join Balpa.

Every month I paid my membership, although the company I worked for had no union recognition.

I then joined a larger airline, and when union recognition was achieved, saw balpa negotiate terms and conditions improvements. And I saw those benefits be handed out to both members and non members alike.

As my career progressed I flew larger aircraft and eventually became a captain on a reasonably sized jet aircraft in a company which was a subsidiary of a major british airline. The contract I was given when I joined, which I read very carefully, enshrined some benefits and terms, one being that any possible redundancies would be on the principle of first in last out.

And then one day that company decided to make redundancies. It's HR department disregarded the contract, and elected to make those redundancies just from one base. As a result many pilots below me on the seniority list at other bases retained their jobs, and even at the same base junior F/Os kept their jobs whilst captains above them on the seniority list lost theirs.

The two major players in the company council, who were senior captains at a base which had not been threatened by job losses, appeared disinclined to discuss industrial action (a unions only real bargaining tool), or even giving up their own pay rise to try to off set redundancies. The attitude of them and also the general secretary of the union was that "if this happened, it could be a test case after the event".

Since that happened, none of those who were made redundant have been contacted by the union, there was nothing pro-active from Balpa regarding any form of representation, and I understand (because althought as a member now forced by their inaction to work abroad I should have received the latest copy of "the log" I have not), that they now recommend that you should not consider any form of tribunial in such situations (despite their assurances that we would be supported).

However, the full time union representatives and staff still work from plush offices and benefit from final salary pension schemes, paid for by members dues.

The title of the thread is obviously a paraphrase of a far more elequent (if indeed that is spelt correctly) and greater man than I, but I would be interested to hear other views. To my mind most people join Balpa for the supposed legal protection, which in this case they have seen fit not to provide. So why give two percent of your salary to them when you could just give a tenner per month to the IPA?...

I may be wrong, and I may be outnumbered, but would like to hear your views.

And if tribunial is mispelled, or even mispelt, I apologise, but have no interest in the pprune spelling police.

[goatface]

"First in, last out" no longer applies in law in the UK and hasn't done for a number of years, regardless of what is in your contract.

In the eyes of the law, your contract of employment automatically changes when new legislation is passed which pertains to the terms and conditions within your contract, your HR department should tell you of these changes.

Providing that employment law (regarding age discrimination) is followed to the letter, it is perfectly legal for a company to make more senior staff redundant over younger (cheaper to employ) staff.

Not much help to you I'm afraid, but BALPA don't seem to do a huge amount for their members unless publicity is involved, if I were you I'd seek help from a "No win, No fee" lawyer.

[parabellum]

You say you read your contract very carefully, was the contract a company based contract, i.e. identical to all, regardless of base or was it specific to your base? It may not be immediately obvious as it will be on the companies headed note paper etc. but be absolutely certain they haven't included a small phrase or sentence somewhere that, in a round about way, states that redundancy will be first in last out at the base where the surplus occurs or that the contract is specific to base, again, probably disguised.

From the day you signed your contract until the day you received your redundancy notice did your company ever advise you that changes to the law of the land might effect your contract?

Not always, but company PLCs are sometimes crewed by a bunch of self seekers who are really only looking out for themselves, they will beat the drum when it is at no personal cost but they won't always take on the company when they should for fear it might damage their careers too.

Never had any faith in BALPA and if you think you may have a case for wrongful dismissal or breach of contract I suggest you use your own lawyer. If you win your case you can then consider suing BALPA for taking your money and neglecting your best and legal interests!

[DownIn3Green]

Para...sorry for your luck, but the Eastern pilots in the late 80's had the same thing happen to them...ALPO National said "hold the line" while Eastern's local chairman said "go back to work"...

The rest is history...

[J.O.]

As long as you're allowed to have situations where not all pilots are members of the same union that is governed by a single set of T's and C's (a completely stupid concept IMHO), this is the kind of divide and conquer mentality that you are going to see.

[AltFlaps]

Hi excrab,

I too work for the company you're talking about (bootiful spelling by the way). I was one of the lucky one's - I kept my job ...

BALPA have not contacted anyone internally either (which I know is of no comfort). Since the day of the redundancies (3 months ago), NOT A SINGLE communique has been issued either by BALPA 'main' or the company council.

Having seen behavior like this from BALPA before, I decided it was time for them to stop taking the pi$s out of me (again), so I quit. The membership woman was not surprised and frankly couldn't care less. All she was interested in was 'keeping me' until the end of the month because the paperwork was then easier for her!

This is the 3rd time I've quit BALPA over the years - I WILL NOT be joining again. A quick calculaton ... I've paid them approx £8000 since I've been flying.

I know that many other pilots have quit from the base that suffered the redundancies ...

I hope things aren't too grim where you are ... and that you make it back soon (assuming the germans leave us alone)

B

[BOAC]

excrab - my commiserations - I thought you were describing the savaging of DanAir 'seniority' when I first read your post but reading again I guess not. However, the story there is similar. Some of the pilots 'abandoned' by Balpa (some with 23 years subs paid) took BA to court privately and each won 5 figure settlements (a 'no disclosure' clause attached!!) despite being told by Balpa there was 'no case'. Maybe one or two will post here or contact you by PM to enlighten you. Whether or not 'LIFO' is now irrelevant or not, I would have thought that any unmodified 'contract' would merit investigation by a keen lawyer?

[Agaricus bisporus]

The answer is, of course, in the title of the thread.

You are BALPA, as is every other member. That is why it is called a "Union".

You vote for your reps, it is they who do the donkey work, not some gnome in Hayes or wherever they live this week. If reps are keen and grafters results may accrue. If not, they won't. That isn't head office's remit.

Yes, it's galling to see the spongers get rewards for free, but then it is your job, as members, to persuade them to stay and pay their way, not freeload. If reps are reluctant to call for action, it may be that membership isn't high enough to make it work, and striking under those conditions is suicide, or that the legal mandate to do so is not clear.

If it comes to a fight then head office can, and will provide advice, professional negotiators and heavy guns, but they cannot force anything that is not enshrined in law.You need to lobby your MP to change that...If employment law says LIFO is history how can anyone force it? Good reps may be able to formulate an agreement with the company to this end, but force it - no!

A great deal of the whingeing we hear about BALPA is related to unreasonable expectations of what they can achieve. They will enforce the law where they have a reasonable expectation of winning, but faced with an impossible to win fight - right or wrong - they'd be irresponsible to continue. (such as trying to extract redundancy money from a bankrupt company, or pensions from that bastard Maxwell after he'd spent them...) The Dan Air case was interesting, BALPA's evidently called the wrong shot there, as lawyers sometimes do. The law is a performing art remember, not an exact science.

I don't doubt that BALPA are grossly inefficient at head office, the junkets, perks, short hours, high salaries, index linked pensions and excessive political aspirations are anathema to most of us, but if you don't like it, refer to the title of this thread again, please.

BALPA isn't a a catch-all fluffy nest to protect us in every one of life's ****ty little deals, this is about the law, not some woolly concept of "fairness"; life is often not fair, and you cannot expect it to be so all the time, but your Union can and will help when within it's admittedly limited remit. Remember, without it; you're naked!

So stay on board, don't sponge off your oppos, and help & encourage your reps.

And remember the excellent title of this thread.

[srjumbo]

It's strange that this should be brought up as a colleague and I were discussing this exact point a few days ago. He has left BALPA and given himself a payrise by doing so. £80 per month.
Think I'll be doing the same shortly. It's a lot of money for what you get and you don't get much.

[M.Mouse]

I am right in thinking from the original post that the poster was made redundant because LIFO was not used. It is my understanding that LIFO is open to legal challenge, specific contract wording aside. If that is the case the poster wished BALPA to take action, presumably legal, to enable him to retain his job with the LIFO criteria meaning BALPA member colleagues at other bases lost theirs.

Redundancy is a ghastly thing for all but I fail to see BALPA being remiss in not legally challenging a questionable principle, possibly establishing unfavourable case law and at the same time alienating other more junior BALPA members who then 'give themselves a 1% pay rise' (what a tired old cliché used by the shortsighted and selfish that is).

BALPA may be far from perfect but, certainly in my company, the reps. in general are very hard working colleagues who spend much time (and at personal financial cost) looking after the majority interest.

I have neither the time, inclination or ability to do so and despite disagreeing with, and sometimes voting against, proposals I think they do a good but thankless job overall.

[Firestorm]

Excrab. I was caught by the redundancies at the same company.

I was not a member of BALPA. I think that some of the CC members were very committed to preserving LIFO in this instance, and worked hard for us on a number of other problems. I think that they were dealing with very difficult managers who I think were woefully unable to manage an airline, as well as being understaffed at the management level. BALPA, the organisation, on the other hand, I have never had a terribly high opinion of. In the days when I was a member I found them nearly impossible to contact, and very reluctant to listen to members' views, but more often trying to tell me what their policy was when I hadn't been asked what view I would like represented on the subject. For instance why did they allow any UK airline to charge employees for their own training? I felt that their fees were too high, their attitude too arrogant, and their staff too militant, but with no understanding of a pilot's worth. I withdrew my support, membership, and money in 2004 after another round of negotiations was ignored by the airline managers, and the CC had received little to no effective help from BALPA. That there is no come back after this particular case from BALPA is of no surprise to me.

[Otto Throttle]

Not an organisation I have ever felt any great compulsion to join, and this situation does not surprise me greatly.

In my own company, the BALPA CC mostly comprises senior captains, and coincidentally, most negotiations work out heavily in their favour. Strange that.

No effort is put into recruiting new members, and that to me speaks volumes about the union mentality. Lazy and arrogant.

I was also recently shown a copy of the latest BALPA demands from the company. To say that the CC live in cloud cuckoo land would be putting it mildly. Absolutely no grasp of reality whatsoever. Equally strangely, the 'concerns' listed by BALPA from a recent tour of bases, does not match with the concerns which are raised from all crews through a separate company forum - they fit perfectly however with the personal views of the senior CC members.

[BusyB]

Can anyone point me in the direction of the legislation that makes LIFO illegal?
I thought if LIFO is not based on age but company experience it was perfectly legal!

[excrab]

M. Mouse

One of the points being that the "balpa member colleagues at other bases" who were junior (and even at the same base who were junior but also of lower rank) had the same contract of employment stating that any redundancies would be last in first out based on the seniority list.

If I (and others in the same situation) had lost our jobs on that basis then fair enough, thats life(o) after all. But if more junior pilots didn't believe in the principle of LIFO they should never have signed the contract and taken the job in the first place.

[Rainboe]

Any work contract gets overriden by progressive law changes in terms of age equality, sex equality and anything else you care to mention that has involved a law change. I'm not sure how the LIFO/Age discrimination problem stands in terms of law. Until it is confronted head on in the High Court with a test case to establish exactly how firm it is, then I would think BALPA is not keen to commit its (members) assets on a very expensive High Court test case. Trying to look at it dispassionately, can the pilot body effectively hold a company to ransom by forcing it to make large scale expensive base changes for pilots rather than simply closing a base down and making those at that base redundant? Is it ethical? Any other company in the land would simply close a factory and make those working there redundant. I don't think pilots really have the power to demand large scale base changes prior to redundancy by seniority. Having said that, I still feel immensely sorry about the situation, and I wish you the best with resolving it satisfactorily. BALPA not only has to chose which side to support, it has to bear in mind its assets and ability to fight a test case. At the end of the day, I do think they work for all our benefit.

[remoak]

BALPA once helped me take an airline (long since defunct) to an Industrial Tribunal. They sent two lawyers and won the case easily. So I wouldn't agree that BALPA only look after BA, or that there is cronyism. As the guy who came up from London to help me said, they have finite resources and they have to pick their fights. They may seem expensive, but their membership base is relatively small for a union. In my case, the figure we achieved at the Tribunal covered my subs for 20 years.

Having said all that, nobody should automatically expect the cavalry to charge in every time there are redundancies. It sounds to me as though the circumstances of the first post would be difficult for BALPA to effectively contest. Such, unfortunately sometimes, is life.

With regard to contracts, they may change as the law does, but the employer is obliged to notify their staff of ANY change to their contract. Few do, in my experience.

[xrba]

“The Dan Air case was interesting, BALPA's evidently called the wrong shot there, as lawyers sometimes do. The law is a performing art remember, not an exact science.”

No, Agaricus bisporus, BALPA did not call the wrong shot, they knew precisely what they were up to when they intentionly sold DANAIR, no small outfit, down the river to protect their vested interests with BA. They operated at BA’s calling, make no mistake about it.

It wasn’t BA that BALPA helped you fight was it remoak. Have they EVER supported another airlines’ pilots against BA? Do BALPA possess any principles whatsoever? I doubt it.

Anyway, what relevance is a dubious union when the magistrate in the industrial tribunal that the DANAIR Pilot’s Action Group took BA to ruled that, yes, BA had broken the industrial agreement, and no, BA were not required to do anything about it! Fair reinstatment is all we were after. Great British justice for you.

Yes we got a sum from BA as a grace and favour measure, [which they could easily find from the surplus in the DA pilot’s pension fund], in my case around a grand for every year of service, about a third of what I would have received if the BALPA reps had ever bothered to negotiate a redundancy agreement for us. We, as unemployed pilots in a disastrous market, did not have the wherewithal, [or ANY union backing] to challenge the tribunal’s incredibly perverse decision, which fills me with many suspicions.

Our Flight Engineers were better assisted by the TGWU, at considerably less cost to them.

BALPA, no thank you, I’d save my money.

[Rainboe]

Well with due respect, but BALPA- yes please. It wasn't BALPA that sold Dan Air pilots down the river. Dan Air was a defunct, bankrupt company. When a company is in that position, bits will be sold off to other companies that feel they can do something with them. Inevitably most of it will be terminated- if it couldn't make a go of it itself, how can other companies make it work. We are going to see a lot of that this year. The company went bust- it doesn't work that a more profitable company takes the whole thing over lock, stock and barrel. It makes the combined group weaker than the original. I'm afraid only parts were needed, and the rest has to be consigned to history. Pilot seniority system peculiarities are not enough to make a whole batch of pilots who are not wanted employed to get at the relative few who were wanted. I'm afraid that's how it is when companies go down. Your beef is with BA, not BALPA, a very small organisation with limited resources. BA did what it needed to rescue the limited bits of that organisation that were viable and make the company as a whole stronger. The fact that Dan Air wasn't working tells you the jobs of most of the staff were not justifiable. It sounds ruthless, but ultimately the law of the market must decide (unless you are a 'civil servant' or politician, in which case totally different rules apply under Brown's Britain!). It is sad, but it wasn't 'BALPA's failure', or BA's, but Dan Air's, and as such, anyone who walked away with a job was simply fortunate indeed.

[Firestorm]

You make a good point remoak. If I may continue your reasoning so much of what goes on in aviation is based on seniority, some times directly, and sometimes with seniority being used as the 'tie-breaker' in a decision or situation involving 2 otherwise equal pilots. This decision by BMI Baby rides roughshod over all of that, and casts doubt on how future decisions may be made.

As I understood the legality of LIFO, and seniority lists as long as the list is based solely on date of joining the organisation, and has no factorisation based on age, race, etc then the LIFO list can legally be used. This is the case at BMI, and BMI Baby whereby one joined the list at the bottom on joining the BMI group with no credit for age, rank or previous experience. This was the basis of the argument as promoted by the BALPA CC. BMI Baby damagement wanted to firstly target the redundancies to the base where aeroplanes where to be withdrawn from, Birmingham, and the added a penalty factor for any disciplinaries that individuals may have.

The BALPA CC proposed several other measures to firstly preserve jobs, and secondly to preserve the credence of the seniority list (both within the company, and for the industry as a whole), but the damagement opted to impose their own decision, and ceased negotiation with the CC.

[M.Mouse]

One point about LIFO and seniority lists. When I joined BA our seniority numbers were in age order i.e. oldest joiner that day had the lowest (most senior) number). Under the latest la-la land claptrap rules that system is ageist and no longer allowed. Now joiners on a given day have their seniority numbers allocated in random order. In the future that will make LIFO interesting to say the least.