101917, You seem to have misread Paddington’s question. Meanwhile, Paddington seems to have the wrong facts about what the airlines have said.

G-Alpha, I've seen the comms from both companies and I may not have quoted verbatim. That said, if you've seen the same comms i'm sure you're able to make an appropriate interpretation from my post.

BALPA
 

My first post here although I have been reading this thread for some time. It transpires that BALPA has reminded BA of the criteria of LIFO. However a significant amount of members have come from those who have recently joined BA. It seems like BALPA is offering up junior pilots first for CR.
In my view it is inappropriate to suggest this considering that other options may be available as mentioned above.
BALPAs members pay a subscription in return for fair and and equal representation. These new recruits could be and are potentially the future of BALPA. Something worth considering.

kcockayne, I am in agreement. The airlines are largely in this dilemma due to the actions of the world’s governments, it is therefore entirely appropriate that the governments support the airlines. The nature of the government’s JRS was to eliminate a business’s main expenditure whilst it is unable to trade, thus minimising redundancies with the aim of preventing economic disaster. An airline’s wage bill tends to be just a fraction of its non-trading expenditure, and therefore they require more focused help. Any government failing to provide that help will in my opinion, lose its entire industry.

Paddington

A junior pilot + a course might be a lot cheaper than a type rated senior pilot.

Hello? Is this thing on?

As I said previously, LIFO was tested in the huge cull after 9-11. It was deemed to be against the law.

Furthermore, it is not the individual that is made redundant, it is the job/role/position. Therefore if BA (Virgin) retire a particulat fleet, that particular job role no longer exists. BA (Virgin) will be quite within their rights to declare that particular job role redundant.

Then, of course it comes down to redeployment agreements. BA is proposing to ignore the current agreement. It is that the unions must test in court.

Choose your battles. Good luck.

MACDO : Excellent post. Puts it into perspective. Tough call for Management and tougher experience for those who feel they have much to protect. I joined a company at the start with 3 aircraft. They quickly expanded to 6 and I rode the wave of good career choice and situation by getting a Command in two years of service. The owner took advantage of the market & sold 3 aircraft, going back to 3. LIFO didn't really protect. I went from SFO to Junior Captain back to SFO. I saw the Management point but boy did I hollar ! Junior DE Captains with less Company time than me retained Commands but me, with more company time went back to RHS.

Not a fair world, I later served a Company that protected LIFO to debatable conclusion. This time, DEC with loads of F/Os behind me with joining dates, preceding mine by donks. As soon as they got Commands, they remained behind me on the Captain List but went ahead by virtue of joining date for lots of other goodies. I asked my CP if we were to get a couple of Concords, would he select on the basis of Joining Date or Seniority. Joining date was the sharp response. Always a fighter, I further asked if he would put Junior Captain (name) with very little Command experience but 30 years as a FO on the Concord fleet ahead of me. "Yes" was the nasty retort & I felt it better to leave the Office & chat up the Sec instead. (Don't worry, true to form, got nowhere ).

BA & Virgin & the rest are soon to discover very little fairness as seen by individuals .And, on the dole queue, there is no Seniority list. Sickening times for a once glorious industry and I view with a very heavy heart.

Just because something is against the law does not make it morally correct or justifiable. Furthermore, laws can be changed - as they often are - when they are demonstrated to be unsupportable. Laws often reflect the political opinion of the day - often supported by “flavour of the moment” thinking. Further; “it is not the individual that is made redundant, it is the job/role/position”. Maybe not, but it IS the individual who loses his/her job. It is NOT the “job/role/position” who joins the dole queue - selection for which must be as fair as possible.

I agree. I was merely offering information where a precident had been set.
Laws can be changed, but it takes time. Time we don't have.

This is from Collins online dictionary. I don't make the rules.

Definition of 'redundant'

(rɪdʌndənt)
1. ADJECTIVE
If you are made redundant, your employer tells you to leave because your job is no longer necessary or because your employer cannot afford to keep paying you.

Just to be clear, I am also staring down the barrel. A forty year career may well be coming to an abrupt end. I mean no offence to you or anyone else.

I don't know why people keep getting their knickers in a twist over LIFO. Plain LIFO was tested and found to be discriminatory.
LIFO modified, so that it does not unfairly dismiss a disproportionate number employees who are a minority of the workforce (Race/Gender) has been used legally. It has not resulted in unfair dismissal legal claims for race or sex discrimination. This is important, because such claims have unlimited liability, whereas a plain unfair dismissal claim is capped. Potentially an employer is at liberty to use other criteria, sickness, absenteeism etc., and a bad employer will certainly use this to remove those it dislikes, but if a legal challenge is mounted it can still only be for plain unfair dismissal, for which the max. compensation is peanuts for the employer. (I think its £40k last I looked)

The whole way that this pandemic has been fought prioritises the Old over the Young - wrecking the economy savages the futures of the young to protect the old and give them a few more years. So why would business be any more receptive to the needs of the young than society as a whole.

"It seems like BALPA is offering up junior pilots first for CR."


I the problem with LIFO anyway was that you end up with more people laid off than otherwise would need to be. If the company wishes to save 'X' amount in wages each month then if you reduce your headcount through LIFO it is the lower paid who are out the door first first so you need to cull more of them than if you did reverse LIFO and ushered the most senior (highly paid) staff out.

Wouldnt the union be most interested in saving as many jobs as possible so would fight LIFO on this basis anyway?

When there is redundancy you don’t lay off to reach a certain savings, but to lay off just enough people to get rid of the redundancy whilst still being able to fly the expected demand.

So LIFO is greatly in the airlines disadvantage.

Yes, I do not disagree with the factuality of what many of you are saying; but I am trying to point out that the company ( in understandably trying to cut costs in order to survive) , owes a debt of loyalty to those who have made a commitment to it over the years. To this end, the company has a higher debt to someone who has made the most commitment, surely ? It is of no material concern to the company as to whether staff member A is older or younger, has a bigger or smaller mortgage, has more or less children or is faced with higher or lower medical or education bills etc., than staff member B. Loyalty should be rewarded, in as much as it can be.

Turin, that's not only wrong but pretty dangerous. If the statement of T&Cs attached to your contract of employment is specific to a type or fleet - e.g. Pilot, Boeing 747 fleet - then you would be correct as the demarcation of this in your employment makes it clear that your role is specific to that fleet. If, like the vast majority of airlines, your contract is as a Pilot, a Captain or First Officer and the fleet is not specified, the withdrawal of that fleet does not automatically render your role liable for redundancy unless everyone is put at risk and the objective selection criteria allow for it. The only conceivable way of doing that would be for re-training costs to be part of the selection criteria for redundancy and it's hard to see BALPA accepting that as a valid criterion even if airlines do propose it.

We have moved on somewhat since November 1992. You might not think it, but we have.

kcockayne e Gosh, you are a real optimist. Unfortunately, you are no more important to IAG than the wealth you create for the owners of IAG, a number on an accountants spreadsheet. What is it we say about the Crewing Dept.? You're only as good as the last favour you did for them?
Sorry, but that's the harsh reality.

I'm not entirely sure what happened in November 1992.
My comments are based on my experience when BA closed MAN, BHX and other engineering line and base stations after 9-11.
Perhaps BALPA is a more informed (or less corrupt) union than was available to the engineers back in 2002.

Do BA (and Virgin) not have a redundancy selection criteria as part of their T&Cs, which would have been generated in a way that passes all the legal tests?

Surely the fairest result is the T&Cs that every employee signed up for are followed to the letter?

Al bridger
 

The initial letter to Balpa inferred that BA was throwing all of the contracts plus terms and conditions out of the window.