British Airways dispute

Phil

Life's too short to open up "links" and do a detailed study. So thanks for a few more details.

The principle of directors taking BIG pay cuts BEFORE asking staff to take modest ones would be a morally good step.

In this case three directors could generate pathetic savings of £1m but it would set the scene for the rest of the staff to accept savings averaging £10k each, totalling £420m pa which is getting close to their current losses.

Cheers

Don

Hi Don,

Not sure I can be bothered to continue a 'debate' about an issue with someone who can't be bothered to look up the facts.

Life's definitely too short for that...

I expect the 3 or so minutes that it took me to look the numbers up is similar to the time it took you to make your most recent ridiculous suggetion! How do you consider you make a £10k pay cut to an individual on £50k? Not to mention how you reduce the pay bill of 3 directors on a total of approx £1.5m to a mere £0.5m? Good grief...

I did suggest (twice!) in my initial post that changes should be applied across the board in order to rescue the organisation. I also suggested with reference to director salaries that "Any such gross reductions in director salaries would therefore amount to a 'token gesture', or a 'show of solidarity with the workforce' at best", of which you chose to quote only the first half.

The company directorship is necessarily dedicated to making tangible changes which will restore the profitability of BA. This is what they're paid for, and what has prompted the proposed changes in staffing levels. Taking a pay cut themselves may assist with keeping staff on board (again, see above), but would have no tangible effect on the profitability of the company. Whether such actions would have helped with staff morale is debatable, although I'm not convinced. I would hope that BA staff also want the company to succeed and are sufficiently intelligent to work out that director pay cuts are merely a gesture of goodwill?

Unless either they too don't bother to look at the figures, or indeed the Unions whip them into a frenzy. Back to my first post again.

Phil

Both sides are due to meet again today.

One should also take ino account the virility contest within the trade unions as various leaders vie for position to get elected to being the big boss of the merged unions.

The Union leadership has to show strength regardless of the dispute's justification

Each airline does not have its own Union, right?

So why is this Union so upset about the treatment of BA cabin crew when all the other airlines' cabin crew get treated, per force, less well (in some way) than that of BA?
Aren't these people in the same Union? Isn't the equalisation of treatment, pay and conditions what Unions are actually for?

Or am I being over-simplistic?

An interesting debate about directors taking a pay cut. I must admit the idea that you could not get good pople to do the job for only £100k to be very unlikely - it is the same argument for the bankers bonuses.

Let us not forget in this dispute the BA cabin crew have not had a penny cut from their pay. They have been asked to accept a 2 year pay freeze) - but even with that 75% of them would still get their annual incremental rises. So who would lose out - ah yes, those CSDs on £60-70k a year who are upset at being asked to push a trolley.

When the union boss says the industrial action is"over the top" something is clearly wrong.

Unite offered a 2.5% cut a little while back, IIRC.

quote:

Originally posted by BernardG:
I agree, BA are like BT,and Royal Mail.
These organisations all have outdated working practices which are heavily unionised.

Do you speak from experience here?

Cheers
Steve

Wonder what Iberia think about this 'problem'

Can somebody explain what it is that the union/cabin-crew are planning to strike over?

...err ok, quick look on the bbc web site reveals:-

In November, BA reduced the number of cabin crew on long haul flights from 15 to 14 and introduced a two-year pay freeze.

The Unite union said this would hit passenger service, as well as the earnings and career prospects of cabin crew.

The airline has also proposed new contracts for fresh recruits and newly-promoted staff. These include a single on-board management grade, no seniority, promotion on merit, and pay set at market rate plus 10%.

The plans for the changes were first presented to company workers and unanimously rejected at a mass meeting in July.

The union said those measures were brought in in November and argues it should have been consulted because the changes are contractual.

But BA disputes this and says it was not obliged to consult.

Cheers

Don

As a matter of prinicple I have avoided flying BA for years. I used to fly every week to Brussels so switching to British Midland meant that BA lost a lot of business. The reason I did it was because of the snotty treatment that I often received from BA staff. Funnily enough most of the poeople I know that fly frequently do the same thing. I find it hilarious that the very same people who treat their customers like crap are trying to justify being paid significantly more than their counterparts on other airlines who treat their customers better. The sooner BA goes the way of Sabena and Swissair the better. If ever there was a compaby that doesn't deserve to exist it's BA

Now me, I used to really like travelling BA, and after spending more than a few uncomfortable and fraught flights with various middle, far-eastern and (God help us) african airlines it was always a relief to settle into a BA seat & feel I was back in good ol' blighty!

The unions are in a difficult place at the moment. The laws that now protect worker's rights, and which they themselves have been instrumental in getting implemented, are making their traditional role of (rightly in many past cases) protecting staff from the worst accesses of ruthless employers rather obsolete.

The obligation of employers to consult with staff, whilst in many circumstances appropriate, is often a bit of a farce, and can cause frustrating delays to businesses who need to swiftly implement change.

In the few times I needed to enter into joint consultations I found it next to impossible to arrange dates with union officials within realistic timescales and often as not they would cancel at the last minute. Incredibly frustrating and potentially very bad for the wellbeing of one's business.

If a company decides, like BA has done, to put cost-saving measures in place then under "Technical, Financial and Operational" reasons they can do so and there's little the union can do to stop them if they can reasonably show that they are acting to preserve the business.

Unisons aren't all bad, and in many ways I found them very constructive and rather easier to negotiate with on behalf of a group of staff than dealing with the individuals themselves.

The strike has been deemed illegal by the HC.
Great news for the fair paying passengers, but I guess it has not actually got the 2 sides any closer
Unite have fired off the expected tirade of words from the red book
Lunacy & suicide seems to be still in vogue

From the BBC website

quote:

The original ballot saw 92.5% of those balloted vote in favour of industrial action.

Sitting at the High Court, Mrs Justice Cox agreed that Unite had improperly included BA employees already set to leave the company in the ballot.

Surely the many weeks required to get to a strike date i.e. 2 weeks to ballot for the right to ballot for strike action,then two weeks for the strike ballot, then 2 weeks notice of first strike date created the very situation that the Judge used to break the workers right to withdraw their labour? Presumably these Unite members were still BA employees?
By the way Mr Justice Cox, just how many people are leaving B.A. during this period ? Oh and where are you flying off to this Christmas?
We may or may not agree with the BA employees decision to strike, but for goodness sake can we at least agree they have the right to strike?

Establishment finds in favour of the establishment, quell surprise?

Even the guy bringing the case for BA said these members had no bearing on the result. Most odf the ex BA employees interviewed seem to have voted against strike action.

quote:

Originally posted by rodwsmith:
Each airline does not have its own Union, right?

So why is this Union so upset about the treatment of BA cabin crew when all the other airlines' cabin crew get treated, per force, less well (in some way) than that of BA?
Aren't these people in the same Union? Isn't the equalisation of treatment, pay and conditions what Unions are actually for?

Or am I being over-simplistic?

Unite see BA as being the benchmark of what airline staff SHOULD be paid rather than accepting the other newer airlines rates which are much less.
Why would they accept a dumbing down of pay rates gained over years of negotiation?

....It is not unlike the NHS where pay rates are nearly always much higher (and IMHO much fairer) than the private sector.

quote:

Originally posted by Jet Johnson:

Unite see BA as being the benchmark of what airline staff SHOULD be paid rather than accepting the other newer airlines rates which are much less.
Why would they accept a dumbing down of pay rates gained over years of negotiation?

....It is not unlike the NHS where pay rates are nearly always much higher (and IMHO much fairer) than the private sector.

So whilst the rest of us have to accept a reduction in our income, those lucky people who've had their wages upped by the Union shouldn't be subject to the state of the economy or the heath of their employer's business?

An interesting observation about the NHS. Why should it somehow be "fairer" for their staff to earn more than those healthcare staff in the private sector? Who's paying for these higher salaries?

Much as I support the principle of the NHS, if you're working for one of the said private companies you can witness at first hand the inefficiencies that go on, and which in this competitive market no commercial company could emulate without going out of business.

quote:

I could tell you a whole load of stuff I feel is bad aviation practice in these airlines too but in the interests of not alarming people and not seeming to rubbish the competition I will restrain myself - lets just say I've seen and heard some things that are a cause for concern.

Go on Jonathan, I'm not flying anywhere soon... but my other half is !