Panda is correct in that Balpa should be protecting its members & not giving them the half baked hand out it has produced which states something along the lines of UK pilots can not decline a duty rostered in Lisbon but if an individual feels 'bullied' they should contact the Duty Pilot . Hell did we pay 1% of our salary for that kind of protection !?I discussed the problems with the easy CC over two years ago regarding differing Unions across the network but Balpa is so frightened of loosing any of it's grip on the UK pilots that it was & still is unwilling to enter into discussions regarding a pan company Union agreement . It was highlighted that this would only play into company hands as we are now seeing & which will get worse in the future.


You should contact your Balpa reps & demand better informed legal protection which is what you pay for , the money should not be used to pay for Balpa CC's expensive lunches & the dog walkers one of the CC's claims expenses for whilst he's on Union duties !

"We dont want to return to the 70's and see unions crippling the economy"

What if the action in Lisbon is a return to this ?

You are arguing with contradictory value judgements - some union action is bad, we don't want that, but if there's some union action everybody should support it????????

Never got to read the rest of your post. If you write utter drivel like this, then I can only assume that the rest of your message is similarly "factually challenged". I would suggest getting your facts right if you want to make a point.

Not unwelcome, just unwilling to understand the law.

It seems you just don't get it.

The law and the contract are quite clear. You have to go, and no secondary industrial action is allowed. Industrial action includes sick-outs and work to rule. Secondary action can leave both the pilot and the union liable to damages and dismissal.

So, you write that we should be seen "to take action".

No union will deliberately expose themselves to damages. No pilot will expose himself to dismissal and damages. Do you get that?

No, I thought not. Cue another post saying that the UK pilots should take action. :ugh:

Thanks for your post Caulfield, it took the heat off of me for about 5 minutes.

John Smith- Does everything represent secondary action to you, even expressing disagreement with Easy Management or or distain for their efforts to break the strike, are you going to be taken to court for having an opinion?

John I think that you are Easyjet Management or a Shady associate that does not want to see any support for reasonable collective Bargaining.

As for going back to the 70's, don't make me laugh, the polar opposite situation exists now. We are made to believe by John that even disagreeing with the company is illegal and any expression of disagreement will have us in very hot water.

Good on the guys in Portugal, leaflet the passengers, make the situation clear that UK law is being used to defeat their Justified collective action.

KP, let me have a go at writing that leaflet.

Dear passenger,

We, the British pilots based in Portugal, plan to disrupt your travel by striking over Christmas. The reason for the strike is that we were promised that we only had to do 2 years in this place, but now our managers are telling us it has to be more before we can escape back to our beloved homeland.

It is with regret that we have to tell you that your flights will be legally operated by UK crews on UK aircraft, and in fact you will suffer no disruption at all to your Christmas travel. Not even a 10 minute delay. The pro-employer UK laws make it impossible for UK crews to refuse these duties.

We invite you to join our plight to get out of this dump and back to the UK by, er, by....


KP, sorry, maybe you could finish the leaflet for me.

Why don't EZY call in the french contract pilots? Not a single one has been contacted for this?

I don't believe easyJet have contacted any individual other than those involved in LIS over this. Why should they?

The negotiations may or may not continue; the strikes may or may not go ahead and others may or may not be called upon to operate over any disruption. Except for the inconvenience it has nothing to do with anyone else. In many ways we are one company in name only because of the different contracts we operate under. For those of you outside this situation it may be easyier to understand our predicament if you saw the different factions (UK, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany) as completely different entities. For example should UK easyJet pilots support industrial action on behalf or BA pilots or visa versa, no.

I fear there are a number of contributors on this forum who are not employed by easyJet anywhere who have a vested interest in stirring up as much trouble as they can. There may be some temporary, localised industrial unrest in the company at the moment but it is still arguably one of the most desired airlines in the world to be employed by at the moment; hence the amount of applications from pilots.

I doubt if anyone could level the accusation of being "Pro American" in my direction, however, it is good to see that the Unions there portray "secondary action" as "calling a spade a spade" rather than some subversive attempt to dismantle capitalism.

Then again, it could be good old-fashioned protectionism. :hmm:

Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA)2013-12-17 22:30:00

ALPA to U.S. Government: Reject Norwegian Air’s Evasive Scheme


The Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA) today called for the U.S.
Department of Transportation (DOT) to immediately reject Norwegian Air
International’s (NAI) foreign air carrier permit application because the
company appears to be attempting to evade its national laws and
regulations to compete unfairly against U.S. airlines and their
employees. The call came in an answer that ALPA filed in response to
NAI’s application.


“Norwegian Air International was clearly designed to attempt to dodge
laws and regulations, starting a race to the bottom on labor and working
conditions,” said Capt. Lee Moak, ALPA’s president. “If successful, the
company would gain a serious and unfair economic advantage over U.S.
airlines in the competition for the business of international passengers
flying to and from the United States. This exploitation of the laws
intended to prevent labor law shopping cannot be allowed to stand.”


While Norwegian citizens control NAI, which is a subsidiary of Norwegian
Air Shuttle (NAS), the company uses aircraft registered in Ireland and
has applied for an air operator certificate from that country. It
appears that its flight crews will work under individual employment
contracts that are governed by Singapore law and that have wages and
working conditions substantially inferior to those of NAS’s Norway-based
pilots.


“If NAS is permitted to pick and choose the countries in which it
establishes its subsidiaries and employs its flight crews, U.S. carriers
will be put at a severe competitive disadvantage because the United
States has one set of laws and regulations for all of its airlines,”
said Capt. Moak. “The U.S.-EU air services agreement was never intended
to allow this type of scheme, which games the system for competitive
economic advantages.”


ALPA maintains that the NAI scheme raises the specter of the “flag of
convenience” business practice that undermined the U.S. maritime
industry by allowing a vessel to be registered in a country different
from its ownership and apply the country of registry’s laws to its
operations. The practice precipitated the decline of the industry and
the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. maritime jobs as companies flew
the flag of countries with the weakest labor and tax laws and
regulations.


Moak noted a quote by the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department in
an opinion piece published today by Aviation Daily: “We must
reject business models premised on scouring the globe for cheap labor no
matter the consequences, and not pretend this is somehow acceptable
competitive behavior.”


“The NAI scheme must be immediately and unequivocally rejected,” said
Moak. “The DOT must not permit U.S. airlines and their employees to face
an unfair competitive disadvantage from this runaway shop and swiftly
dismiss NAI’s air carrier permit application.”


Moak also called on the Irish government to reject NAI’s attempt to
register the aircraft in Ireland. “Ireland should not allow itself to be
complicit in NAI’s avoidance scheme,” he concluded.


Founded in 1931, ALPA is the world’s largest pilot union, representing
nearly 50,000 pilots at 32 airlines in the United States and Canada.
Visit the ALPA website at Air Line Pilots Association, International.

Correct CaptPlayStation. Well done ALPA.

For John Smith and 100%, lets put it this way...

Do you, or do you not think that using UK based pilots to break a legitimate Portugese pilot dispute is a good idea in the grand scheme of things?

If the latter, cognisant of the law with respect to secondary action, what do you think the solution to the problem is?

BALPA absolutely should lobby for a change in the law with respect to the type of multi-jurisdictional issues airlines are now using to their advantage, because the law was conceived well before a time when these issues were a problem.

In just the same way they are lobbying/continuing to lobby for changes/review of the new FTL legislation whose inception was a complete fiasco....

SR71 and Captplay.....:D

I was clearly sciving when articulation was being handed out... Thank you..

Let me just add my disappointment that UK and Irish based Pilots are allowing their political motivations to drive Captain salaries rapidly toward those of London underground train drivers, am I wrong, don't Jet aircraft Captains have significantly more responsibility and Skill. It should not be just a question of supply and demand.

If it wasn't for those political motivations we would have a stronger bargaining position than the train drivers.

This from unionhistory.info

"Between 1980 and 1993 there were six Acts of Parliament which increasingly restricted unions' ability to undertake lawful industrial action. Secondary action, better known as 'sympathy strikes', was outlawed and picketing was restricted. Ballots were needed for official industrial action from 1984 and these had to be postal from 1993. Although unions have learned to use ballots as part of the negotiating process, they have imposed increasing financial costs, while the requirement to give employers seven days' notice further reduced unions' ability to respond quickly and potentially reduced the effectiveness of any action they took."

By the end of the seventies the pendulum was well and truly on the side of unions and the workforce. Did it then swing too far the other way? Possibly. Will it swing back? Given that no elected party has had this in a manifesto since then, unlikely for the forseeable future. Even the socialist (?) government with strong majorities between 1997-2010 wouldn't go there.

Should the TUC and/or individual unions (eg BALPA) campaign for a change in the law? Possibly, but my guess is that there is no political will in the parties that may form a government.

So....we are where we are, the laws on industrial action by uk workers and unions are very clear: https://www.gov.uk/industrial-action-strikes

It can't be wished away, much as some would like to.

Is it secondary action to refuse to travel to somebody elses place of work and operate their equipment?

I understand that it is not as simple as that but I would be interested to hear balanced views on the law in this regard.

in a word panda, yes

In a word, derisory, but nevertheless, represents the spirit of the age.

Thank God the abolitionists weren't of the same fortitude.

Increasingly, the law will come under pressure as it is found to be unreasonable and out of date for the society we find ourselves living in. Some prefer to be at the cusp of change, others, often comfortable with their lot, ride it out from the sidelines.

One often wonders why Doctors have managed to protect their T&C's in a way Pilots have not over the last 30 years. One of the major reasons must be that Doctors tend to enter their profession with a desire to look beyond themselves and care for others. Pilots, on the other hand, pursue a selfish interest to, slip the surly bonds. We just like flying.

Not unsurprisingly then, that selflessness on the part of Doctors has made sure that, collectively, as a group, their representation remains extremely strong. Because they look after each other.

Maybe if more of us stood up to be counted, we'd make a difference.

that's just :mad:. Doctors have good T&C's because there is a shortage. there are no out of work doctors, more posts that can't be filled due to no staff.

I so think this is one of the MAIN problems with pilots today (or should I say the pilots of yesterday) they compare themselves to Doctors.

and you don't know doctors very well if you think they look after each other you won't find a group that back stabs and manipulates better than they do, ok well maybe pilots are better at that than doctors.

SR71. Not derisory, just true.

Was replying to kungfu pandas objection (which he has removed, so edited to say ) . . . if people hadn't been so willing to throw their own money at funding not only their licence, but their type rating to boot, there would be, if not a shortage, at least not an excess. . . as airlines wouldn't train too many pilots at their own expense just to keep the salaries down by virtue of "creating" too many candidates.

Sorry to say, but this rot has , at its roots, SSTR & P2F & the mentality that has continued thereafter.

If you were a "valued commodity" (I.E in plain language you cost the company some money) you wouldn't be dicked around with.

The last 10-15 years has seen individuals self-financing, to the ridiculous extent that we eventually arrived at the ultimate "bad joke" of paying to do "extended line operations". . . what, really, does the profession expect/imagine we command in the way of respect ,when all & sundry were willing to prostitute themselves to jump the Q regardless of experience/ability.

The current situation had the seeds sown by the imbeciles from the "want it & WANT IT NOW ! " generation who believed that seniority/meritocracy was best replaced by ability to pay.

Unfortunately, ALL of us in this industry are reaping the benefits of their ill founded short term mentality.

As for back-stabbing. . . well you know the old joke "more loyalty/fraternity to be found in a Bordelo" only problem . . it isn't a joke.

It seems many LIS crew may have accepted cr@p to jump the Q . . .sounds familiar ? if that is the case, well, I hope you are subsequently able to repair the (self inflicted) damage caused by accepting T's & C's that were "below par".

Whilst I broadly accept that we should all stick together, if one group struck out alone for self-serving reasons, should they expect the others to rally to their aid when they finally choose to realise they sold themselves a lemon ?

I don't know the exact history of the LIS base, but it seems that some went into it with their eyes open (in one respect) but with no imagination vis a vis "half-promises" of what would "possibly" transpire in the future.

In spite of all this I wish them well, but I guess they should also accept, that it was their hand that put the signature on whatever crummy contract they now hold in their hand.

I think the only point that has any merit in a Doctor/Pilot comparison, is that (to the best of my knowledge) you cannot (well at least not in Europe AFAIK) go from zero to doctor & gain employment as a Doc purely by self financing. . . however, I stand willing to be proven wrong on that score too, as nowadays ? ? :ugh: who knows.