Euroland unions vs uk unions
 

Can anyone explain why the unions in the uk lost their power?
I get answers they lost it under thatcher, but WHY Is it possible to get things done in euroland and why Is Balpa powerless? Terms n conditions have gone backwards a lot in the uk :ugh:

UK unions lost their power during the seventies and early eighties when their myopic vision lead them to pick the wrong fights. They tried to resist change when it was obvious that the industrial landscape was in turmoil. In trying to resist change they made UK industry unreliable and expensive. Customers went elsewhere and the so did the jobs. In resisting change the unions doomed the companies that provided their members. The unions lost their muscle and to a large extent their relevance to UK industry.

Behind this was the desire of the unions to direct the political agenda. Challenging the government ensured that legislation to curb the power of the union barons was enacted.

I guess the short pithy reason would be the lack of foresight on behalf of the union leaders of the seventies ensured the demise of the unions in the UK

Are they now legally crippled? No way back?
I was flying in the uk 5 years ago and now I'm back... Amazed how things went backwards rather than improving :ooh:

Agree with JT above, the arrogance of the "traditional" unions in thinking they had a remit to dictate national political policy is surely their main mistake. For non UK readers the traditional unions almost entirely funded the Labour party (and still do) and thus have an extraordinary power in dictating Labour policy which is especiallty unnerving as most of these unions were, and some still are unashamedly Marxist. This sort of dinosaur intellectuality brought their crazy ideology into disrepute even with many Labour voters, and their outrageous and pie-in-the-sky demands to perpetuate obsolete and damaging work practices and subsidies for dead-duck industries came to a head in 1982 with the suicidal miners strike. Mrs Thatcher had the guts to finally stand up to this tyrrany and broke lemings once and for all.
Trouble was, the remaining unions, even the responsible and non political, non militant ones like BALPA remain tarred with the same militant brush and are still regarded by many in "management" with suspicion as wreckers instead of an asset.
The overt politicalization of UK unions had dulled their credibility as workplace negotiators as much amongst the workers (ie us)as with the bosses and the media.
The lack of success with UK unions (ie BALPA) today in supporting the needs of its members is down to the disillusion of those members with the ability of the union to work...It is a self-crippling system, it is OUR fault. The law hasn't helped, but the legal system is nowhere near as restrictig to union activity as some would have us believe.

Our continental cousins have no such problem with standing up for themselves which is why the are are such horrific discrepancies between us as 40% pay differentials amonst members of the same company separated by a mere 150 miles - and crucially a bit of water. Differences like a workforce being offered destruction of their lifestyle or take substantial pay cuts in an almost ludicrously profitable company, one that simultaneously showers Millions on its directors in a way that would make the shades of even British Leyland Directors, or those of BSA and Triumph blanch...
And despite these iniquities we still can't get membership of the union to a sensible level.

Our continental cousins are willing to help themselves. We aren't. Make no mistake, that's where the power is lost.

The problem as I see it is that BALPA HQ is expressly complicit in lowering the terms and conditions of all UK pilots by not addressing the exploitation of cadets by Airlines and Training organisations.

Were they not threatened with industrial action by their employees over changes to their terms and conditions a year or so ago?

BALPA might survive within companies like BA but are haemorrhaging members elsewhere.

Useless.

BALPA are pretty toothless as far as unions go, pathetic really...

I agree.

If you work for RYR and want to join a union, join IALPA.

After 20 years experience of the other lot, I would say that they are nowhere near up for the fight. Complacent, lazy, unhelpful, arrogant and unsympathetic are some of their better ' qualities ' ( allegedly ).

The problem with this argument is that a union is only as powerful as it's own members. If BALPA is unhelpful, arrogant and unsympathetic, then that is because the workforce members, i.e. the pilots themselves are unhelpful, arrogant and unsympathetic. A union branch is only as strong as the unity of the members of the branch. Pilots are typically well educated, relatively well informed and tend to make their own decisions, they do not provide fertile ground for the typical union which operates best with an uninformed and malleable workforce that will respond to the union leadership when it demands a strike. Blaming BALPA for this is just intellectually lazy.

So why is IALPA doing considerably more to form combative structures than BALPA then ?

I have known some very courageous pilots who have stood up for the benefit of all their colleagues and have been let down dramatically.

Most of the things that RYR union members want would not harm the company financially at all, and probably reduce costs in the long term.

Many ' typically well educated, relatively well informed and tend to make their own decisions ' pilots in RYR who refused to join a union are now seeing that they were completely wrong, and are now joining up.

Most new recruits completely believe that all you have to do is exactly what in says in the manuals and you will be fine. They do learn about the real world eventually.

And if BALPA are serious about their independent's (non BA) membership which I believe is around 50% then the next 12 months will prove crucial to them with the BMI/BA case, especially with the pension situation. I kid you not an awful lot of pilots I speak to are wondering what they are getting for their money.Especially with loads of dosh being spent on things like BA's holiday pay.

The holiday pay issue will benefit all pilots - and cabin crew, irrespective of the company they work for.

There seems to be an attitude of "BALPA have done nothing for me", but the truth is that any union is only as strong as its membership. There is no magical, mythical BALPA that can wave a wand and sort all ills, BALPA is us, it is the pilots, in the individual companies that is BALPA. If the representation of any union within a company is small, then so is the ability of that union to represent its members. Not only that but also the members within that union need to ALL follow the union leadership to achieve a result - something that BASSA forgot recently to their cost.

If you want to bash BALPA, go ahead but do not expect some magical better situation to occur if some of the pilots go to one union, some others to a different union and others still are not union members at all. Division in the workforce only plays into the hands of the those who are destroying your terms and conditions. It is interesting that BA with its good T&Cs has a high percentage union representation and a pragmatic union council.

If all RYR BALPA members join IALPA instead, there will be less division not more.

Thanks agaricus :)

I think I can understand juan and lean towards the point of, unions are only as strong as their members are. :ouch:

Maybe it would be a good idea for the unions ( balpa) to provide us with information on how strong they are and what is legally acceptable? For the moment I only get rumours on how powerless pilots are in the uk, but maybe that's not true?

I also am a strong believer that the unions should be an asset to a company rather than a threat... The impression I got from the union in France is that there was a lot of 2 way conversation helping the needs of both parties.

BALPA have pretty much done nothing for me as I am not a member but more importantly BALPA do not seem to have done much for its members. That of course is based on the number of members who have told me that they are considering leaving due the ineffectuality of the Company Crew Council and BALPA HQ.

"If the representation of any union within a company is small, then so is the ability of that union to represent its members". Agreed but then you have to ask yourself why are so many people leaving the Union. The answer I believe is that most members feel that the company council and HQ do not really have the will to represent the members interests.

In the last 5 years the CC in our company have presided over a maintaining ( not improving ) of longer service pilots T&C at the expense of the T&C of new joiners. Indeed our new joiners now are FLEXICREW and Cadets who until recently had no BALPA recognition. How convenient and cowardly was the BALPA CC and HQ response initially. " We cant do anything for you as we dont represent you as you are not employed by .......... ( we all know who ).

Then BALPA HQ fresh out of the starting blocks,sniffing the wind for new revenue streams, strikes like a coiled cobra . A £10 membership for CADET and FLEXICREW people. Thus recognising and condoning the poor wages these people are operating on.

Then comes the first flexible Random Roster summer offer from the company for more money. BALPA CC advice " Dont touch ..it is the thin edge of the wedge..." Who volunteers. The BALPA Base Rep and BALPA members !!!!. The next year the company repeats the offer but with a much reduced financial incentive. Once again oversubscribed by BALPA members.

One can just imagine what really happens at the Company and BALPA CC get togethers. It must be a most congenial environment. WB ( management Rep ) "I say ......you seem to be doing a reasonable job for the BALPA Crew Council have you ever fancied a management position. We happen to have just such a position coming up at LGW. Give it some thought ....another glass of bubbly ? "

I reiterate USELESS

Bottom line is that conflicts of interest are everywhere and probably make the world go round, albeit in cesspit of unfairness and exploitation.

Great lesson.......I should be a school teacher !

All TUs are dependant on their members.

There is no "wand" to be waved.

So if members want something to be different, they need to take action.

A TUs only power is the threat of IA. If a TU wants to get an employer to do something, it needs a realistic threat of IA. Very few TUs have that nowadays.

I was intrigued by a dispute outside Aviation - in Pharms. Astra Zeneca closed their pension scheme to existing members. No more pension accruals, although old accruals would be honoured.
Astra Zeneca ER folk and their bosses were clumsy in the extreme. (Take it from me, AZ bosses are a thousand times better than Aviation bosses. But in this case, they were not very good.).
They forced the TUs to hold strike ballots. The TUs won the strike ballots - and held some of these modern day-long strikes. AZ ignored them.
AZ "won" the dispute. The employees lost.

Moral of the story - even if you do go on strike, it doesn't mean that you will win.

To the knockers, speak for yourselves. BALPA works for us. In my company, just over 90% of my colleagues are members and we trust our CC and the guidance of BALPA. As a result, we have reasonable T's & C's. It would be nice to have more, but even if we squeemed, and SHOUTED and were :yuk: all of the place, we would still not end up with much more. And believe me, if we had to, we would take industrial action.

Maybe what is wrong in the complainers' companies is that their CC's are over represented by those on the top of the pile and hopelessly under-represented by those on the bottom - like we were a few years ago.

Nationally, all we we can do is complain and promote causes; not insist on implementation. Currently, no union has enough power to make government policy. Even the plonkers at Unite are finding it tough to strangle the country so I think it unfair to blame BALPA for P2F schemes. Instead, the CC's of the companies with these schemes should be held to account. I also hope BALPA do sweet FA for Mr Mugabe - why should they? And as for RYR membership, that is almost impossible. The pikey has legally manufactured a structure that prevents any legal industrial action.

Solution - Join and participate. And if you are not a member, keep quiet because its nothing to do with you.

PM

I don't fully understand this "unions are only as good as the members" principle.
I pay my accountant to do stuff for me that I don't understand and to do it proactively. He does it pretty well. Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect something similar from a supposedly professional body such as BALPA?
I used to pay BALPA to stand up for my interests (they cost more than my accountant btw, by a long chalk) and they did less than nothing when I needed them and took no interest in my ideas to sort out the problems in my company. I decided in the end to spend the subs elsewhere (50% on wine, 50% on another union that does twice the job).

Those holding up Ialpa as a paragon of virtue need to scratch the surface there.

While they can certainly organise members, they are disastrous with money.