BALPA unrealistic fees?

[Oldsalt]

I've just noticed my BALPA fees have risen to about £41 a month.
My previous union membership (Nautilus) as a ship's Captain is currently only £19 a month.
My wages haven't changed so what is BALPA doing to charge twice as much for doing a similar job? Could it be the glossy magazines? I appreciate union membership is important, particularly in the current climate, but I'm struggling to justify such expense. Anyone else with views on this?

[Bruce Wayne]

They've been doing a lot of 'negotiating' this year so of course the lunch expenses bills have come in.

Doubles all round !

[The Real Slim Shady]

Holy Expense Account Batman........you could be right

[Flyingstig]

Hi Bruce Happy New Year!

BALPA is once again demonstrating that it is keeping in touch with industry trends !
Everyone else is screwing the pilots!!??

[fireflybob]

I thought BALPA membership was 1 % of salary (per month).

When I recently called them to confess that my salary had increased, a nice polite lady told me that due to the economic situation there would be no increase in my sub for this year (2010). So maybe it would be an idea to check.

That said you get what you pay for. BALPA do a lot more than just publish a glossy magazine. Also, to paraphase Kennedy, ask not what BALPA can do for you but what you can do for BALPA! As a member of BALPA you are a part of IFALPA - the International Federation of Airline Pilots. Many aircrew fly internationally where one is guilty before proved innocent. I would not dream of doing my job without having this protection.

Will leave you with this clip, enjoy!

What have the Unions ever done for us?

[Rainboe]

Completely agree. BALPA carries out more studies and technical matters than any other association on behalf of its members. And it represents them well. When things go wrong, BALPA is behind you offering support. They have instigated support when it was needed. Just remember the tiny membership base and the massive work that goes on behind the scenes. For 1%/year from the limited membership, massive VFM!

I can tell you the members are thoroughly sick of the sudden applications from desperate troubled non-members who suddenly discover the reasons for membership! If you decide you want none of it, fine, keep out, but don't use this thread as a means of flinging insults or abuse at the people who do want to be members, as so many threads about BALPA become thanks to the same noisy minority.

[SAXONBLOKE]

As usual Rainboe, you tell people how things are and what they should and shouldn't do, if not what they should and shouldn't think.
Although actually, I think you'll find the very purpose of a site like this is for people to express their views, however different they are to your own.
Sad obnoxious

[The Real Slim Shady]

Bob, you have probably been a member since you were at Hamble and it did you proud for those years: tempus fugit and there are better ways of securing legal help, not dependant on BALPA generosity - check the Ts and Cs - but on payment.

PS I was a member of the RAF Club, paid my subs, never got a chance to use it so gave up.

[fireflybob]

The Real Slim Shady, yes to an extent I agree with you. There isn't a perfect union/representation just as there isn't (to my knowledge) a perfect employer (if there is then please let me know!).

I don't just want legal help. I want a professional organisation which will represent my interests on all aspects of my profession. Just because I have hardly ever used their services is hardly relevant to me. The mere knowledge that I have someone independent I can turn to on a whole raft of different issues makes me feel more comfortable.

I don't mind paying for this either. I would rather pay a bit extra so that BALPA can attract the best people to work on my behalf with suitable Ts and Cs.

Thought I just check the Nautilus website and I note that they have 25,000 members

maritime professionals including ship masters (captains), officers, officer trainees (cadets) and shipping industry personnel, such as ship pilots, inland navigation workers, vessel traffic services operators (similar to air traffic control), harbourmasters, seafarers in the oil and gas industry, and shore-based staff.

I imagine this number far exceeds the BALPA membership hence the fact that their subs are a lot less! Here is their link:-

Nautilus Union

BALPA website says membership is "currently more than 10,000" and growing each month.

Lastly, membership fees are tax deductable. I quote from the BALPA website:-

Members are now entitled to tax relief on two thirds of their BALPA subscription. This means that if you pay an annual subscription of £500, you will be entitled to tax relief on £334, saving £73.50pa for a basic rate tax payer (22%), and £133.60pa for a higher rate (40%) taxpayer.

[Barden]

So what's happened here? The old salt, worried about his union dues going up, and apparently ignorant that his increased BALPA fees are caused to an increase in his basic pay, posts on the internet.

Found FFB's Youtube interesting and the other links that followed. They are quite right. There is active union busting going on through this website.

I think far too many Walmart-types frequent this website and are taken in by slim-shandy types.

[The Real Slim Shady]

Barden, no one is "taken in" by fact.

All you have to do to see what your union subs are spent on is to look at the accounts: it is quite clear that more is spent on lunch, dinner and swanning around than providing legal assistance to the membership.

The pro BALPA contigent cannot or will not provide valid arguments to justify the stance taken, for example, on the easyjet cadets - with 20% easyjet representation on the NEC and the BALPA Chairman an easyjet Captain, which is being done to death in another thread, nor can they provide any answers to market forces or support when your company contracts. Again done to death on other threads.

What you have is a entity that needs your money to survive but does little to provide value for that money: strident birdcalls of "the pilots in your company are BALPA, BALPA is the the pilots in your company" etc etc don't wash anymore. We can all think for ourselves and see that you are getting zero value for your tax deductible subscription.

[Barden]

Now then Shandy, for a non-union member you take an unusual interest in the accounts of an organisation you so evidently despise.

Fortunately vast majority of members problems, at least in my company, are sorted long before the lawyers get their greedy hands on the member's shekels.

And as far wining and dining, I imagine most of this is down to the reps, who are serving pilots from all corners of the country, unpaid and elected by their colleagues. Their service on behalf of their colleagues means they miss out on lucrative trips and consequent flight pay and allowances - shouldn't their HOTAC, travel and eating expenses be paid? I don't begrudge that at all.

We do agree on one thing that the silence of the NEC regarding cadet-type deals being foisted on those entering the industry is deafening. These deals are a cancer and need stamping on.

Finally, all your talk non-unionised pilots being the only ones who can think for themselves reminded me of this little clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-w1nqzYTS4&feature=related

Walmart airline = Walmart pilots.

[Bruce Wayne]

[al446]

Bruce Wayne

Perhaps you would like to share with all the intellectual processes that led to your posting a pic of an NUM president of the early 80s. You may like to bear to in mind that a BALPA official, shortly before his election to parliament, was Norman Tebbit who was rabidly opposed to Scargill and espoused the laissez-faire practices now being employed within the locos and rapidly gaining ground.

Come on old chap, you can do better than that. It wasn't even good propaganda.

[The Real Slim Shady]

Now then Shandy, for a non-union member you take an unusual interest in the accounts of an organisation you so evidently despise.

Fortunately vast majority of members problems, at least in my company, are sorted long before the lawyers get their greedy hands on the member's shekels.

Of course I take an interest: I like to see where the priorities lie. Fat salaries, company cars,final salary pension schemes - maybe even the BA stalwarts will wake up and smell the coffee. I would like nothing better than to finish them off permanently. I don't just not want them at FR: I want to see them gone.

I always found it unpalatable that when the small minded and small of stature Chris was running the organisation, that he was quite content to take a 38% rise in the year that his precious organisation negotiated a cut for the workers in BM. Before you start on the "it was the CC etc" think on who advised them and ratifiied the deal: BALPA.

Of course the members problems are sorted: BALPA just won't dig into the member's shekels to help them. Legal assistance is NOT an automatic right if you are a BALPA member - read the small print: with my legal insurance, organised by another dis-illusioned former BALPA member, for the princely sum of £11 per month, I get on the spot advice at the end of a phone 24/7 and guaranteed legal costs paid. Who needs a fair weather friend?

Another reason the member's problems are sorted is that the fat cats, senior captains a la easyjet Chairman - are looking after themselves, not the poor downtrodden CTC cadet or expendable FO. How can you possibly sit there at your keyboard and be so patronising and condescending when it is totally transparent that the BALPA chairman and 20% easyjet representation on the NEC are doing nothing, rien, nada, zip, zero to stop or change the rot - because it isn't in THEIR interests to rock the boat. Union - what a joke.

People, glass houses, throwing stones........keep going Barden.

PS your WalMart analogy is quite amusing: I have a very good friend who is an easyjet captain. Last time we had a beer together I took one look at him and completely involuntarily said " F8ck me mate, you look exhausted".

He is: permanently worn out. Not just by stupid scheduling, BALPA CC approved, but by being messed around by crewing, BALPA CC approved, and overwhelmed by trivial emails from management, BALPA CC approved.

You keep your 40 Thieves membership: I'll buy the missus another handbag with what I save by not being a member!

[al446]

TRSS

Legal assistance is NOT an automatic right if you are a BALPA member - read the small print

Unusually, you are quite correct on this point but it is common across unions. Legal advice is automatic, or should be, and if the problem needs to be referred to a lawyer it will be. However, if the advice of the lawyer is that the case is a lost cause the union will withdraw support. As would your insurer.

[The Real Slim Shady]

However, if the advice of the lawyer is that the case is a lost cause the union will withdraw support. As would your insurer.

Sorry mate, not the case: the insurer will pay the legal fees. Anyone who pressed on regardless, in the face of overwhelming advice, would be off their trolley.

However, your mates in the 40 Thieves will give up before they even start.

[gatbusdriver]

Save your breath chaps. TRSS is not worth it, he is a vile little man who cannot enter into reasoned argument. The last time I tried I had a load of abuse.

I see from your responses that he is still spouting the same rubbish he always does, going on about accounts and the fact that so little is spent on legal fees as opposed to hire cars/food/hotels etc. What he refuses to comprehend is that all the time spent training the reps on the CC helps reduce the number of incidents where lawyers are required. He also refuses to acknowledge any of the good Balpa does, this is just ignored (just as I now ignore him).

He has been banned several times from this site The last time for posting some bile on the GSM thread. He is clearly a very unpleasant troll.

If you're reading this TRSS, I did try to PM you with regards your idea about a Christmas fund for the GSM pilots, funnily enough I found your PM's switched off (why am I not surprised). Anyway, no matter, I have made a donation by other means!

Happy New Year to all.

[Barden]

Shandy,

I'll take my hat off to you - you were obviously listening in the 'how to muddy the waters' section during your union busting course.

Very little of what you say is worthy of a response and I hope any professional pilot would have the intelligence to recognise this, other than to say yes, you are correct that BALPA has been silent for too long on the subject of cadets. Now for the first time and very recently an Easyjet pilot has just become BALPA chairman, maybe, just maybe they'll be stirred into action. Don't however be so churlish to suggest that you or your ilk give two hoots about the plight of cadet pilots.

[The Real Slim Shady]

gatbusdriver,

I can assure you that I am neither vile, nor little.

I do not, however, subscribe to your overwhelming devotion to what is patently a flawed, in the extreme, collection of mediocre,self serving sycophants.

Moreover, if your sycophants are spending your money training company reps I submit that the training is failing: negotiating redundancies at Thomson, baby and Virgin patently requires a skill base sadly missing from the majority of the pilot population.

Perhaps you would enlighten me, and everyone else, what this "rubbish" is that I am spouting about the BALPA accounts: it is there, in black and white, untarnished by me, MOL, LHC or anyone else.

• Affiliation fees and conferences £409,503 - 144 times more than they spend on training CC reps
• Travelling and out of pocket expenses £396,499 -more than double the cost of defending members
• Lunches and entertainment £80,239 - 28 times the training costs
• Cost of defending members £191,212
• Salaries £1,529,787
• Pensions £ 512,351 - close on 30% of salaries
• Training £2,829 - less than 4% of the cost of lunches and entertainment, NOT EVEN £10 a day
• Motor Vehicle depreciation £18,715 - close on 9% of the cost of defending members and nearly 8 times more than training
• Computer Costs £244,307 - almost 90 times more they spend on training
• The remuneration of the General Secretary £138,199
• Pension - The Employer's contribution was 26% of salary.

I'm sure that your choice to ignore me is borne from a resolve to remain ostrich like, head firmly in the sand surrounding the 40 Thieves, rather than acknowledge common sense and look at the facts in the accounts.

Incidentally, my PM's aren't turned off: I had a query about FR recruitment from someone only the other day.

Finally, if you dispute my assertions take it up with BALPA's auditors: you are being done!

Barden, this one is for you