BBC story

I kind of get their point, but it does give the union more ammunition of 'bullying' and 'heavyhanded' management tactics?

Very vindictive and just hopeless managing of the situation.

Fair enough.

Its a benefit for an employee, if the employee wants to act against the company then why should the employer continue to offer the benefit.

I think the cabin crew have made themselves look very bad over this whole issue.

I liked it last week when the union came out of negotiations bleating about the offer being reduced. Walsh then came out, and said "of course their offer has been reduced, they are striking and it's costing us money, so we are offering them less".

Absolutely fair enough…

Even though i can understand the staff's anger, they need to get in touch with the real world as i believe they enjoy better terms and far better pay than staff at other airlines.
Where on earth did Unite get that 1970's millitant scally union guy from ??

"Vindictive? or fair enough?"

sooner or later, some lawyers are going to be remarkably well paid for sorting that one out

(If BA survives, that is)

It's a perk, not a contractual benefit.

Hardly likely to matter to the staff, when they won't have a job soon. My brother is a BA trolley dolley, he signed up over 15 years ago, why should they have the right to just completely change his terms & conditions, after he's provided them 15 years service?
I think most 'right minded' ppl would be upset if their employer did it to them.

The cabin crew agreed to exactly the same terms that the flight crews did right from the beginning, but no Walsh thinks there idiots who aren't required & wouldn't agree. He's spent loads of money to train up temporary staff, who aren't able to provide any of the normal services the trolley dolley do, must be a harder job than they thought eh?.

Walsh has done nothing but line his own pocket & f*ck everyone else over, all the was through his MD-ship.

My brothers off sick & so is not participating eitherway btw. Mainly I think because he believes they'll all be screwed over in the end.

Why would you continue to offer a perk to staff that have undermined the viability of your business? They were warned and still went on strike. No point bleating about it now. Unite, to me, seem to have lost any semblence of grip on reality over this dispute and have not done themselves any favours at all. Willie Walsh is being strong and firm about what the business needs to continue to run and be profitable thus keeping jobs and paying staff. Unite don't like it, get stampy feet and appear to take it personally and escalate the dispute. Because it is now personal they have lost sight of the damage their action is doing to BA and that while they may ultimately win a battle, the cost may turn out to be BA and they will have succeeded in not protecting anything for their members. Of course, Unite man will still have his job at the end of it, so he's all right jack. Numbnuts!

Its a hard one this. The cabin crew are clearly in cloud cuckoo land and being lead by an idiot on one hand. On the other, Walsh has been cast from the same mould as that twunt O'Leary. Its hard to know who to hate more 👿

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. BA pilots took a collective pay cut to avoid redundancies.

I work (as a contractor) for a large low cost airline and don't get any free travel perks and actually earn less as a pilot than BA pays their cabin crew.

BA pilots took a collective pay cut to avoid redundancies.#

Lets try this again eh? "The cabin crew agreed to exactly the same terms that the flight crews did right from the beginning" but Walsh would not accept it.

This to me is a classic post Thatche industrial dispute.

management want to make changes and have a business case to do so. A mnacho stance is adopted by the management and changes are imposed unilaterally and no negotiation is considered.

Staff get grumpy and threaten strike. Management take this as an opportunity to show how macho they are and escalate things so in a tit for tat manner the staff side do as well.

for example – there was an offer on the table that could have been a basis for settlement. After the vote in favour of strike but before any action this offer was removed and the staff side were told it would not be offered again only a reduced offer. Remember at that point no strike action had been taken

Then there is the suspension of all union activists. Illegal.

Now the threat of removal of "perks" – which will end up in court or have to be dropped as it is a part of their contract under "custom and practice"

its a stupid dispute made worse by macho posturing from both sides but the management have clearly both escalated the dispute and failed to manage well.

As an object lesson in how to create a bitter industrial dispute and how to ruin a business its a shining example. all should be ashamed of themselves and especially the management for a clear and abject failure to lead.

In Germany this would never have happened as there is not the culture of confrontation from both sides.

I don't know the details of this but it seems that over 90% of the workforce voting for industrial action is more than just trouble makers and fools. I personaly think the problem is the fact that other employers get away with paying their staff as little as they can get away with. Force everyone else up to BA's level instead of dragging them down!
Then pay for it by cutting the amount in dividends they give the greedy share holders with their snouts in the trough.

Think I might start a revolution from my bed!

z1ppy – source? And please not from the Unite website!

source, my brother a fricken BA Trolley dolley, you know them that are stiking!

its a stupid dispute made worse by macho posturing from both sides but the management have clearly both escalated the dispute and failed to manage well.

You think? Look at the cost structures of BA and compare them to other airlines. You'll notice that employee costs at BA represent almost one third of their total cost structure and that this is significantly higher than for other airlines.

Cabin Service Directors on the older contracts earn around £50-60k a year. You tell me whether you think that's reasonable for what is effectively a hospitality role.

BA absolutely has to reduce its employee cost base or it won't survive. The pilots (I am married to one) have taken a 20% cut in pay. I've taken a 20% cut in my pay having been laid off and returned to work (not in the airline industry). The cabin crew need to realise that they are not immune from economic reality and that they are going to have to swallow this. It's not even as if they are cutting their pay! The dispute is over moving from 15 to 14 cabin crew on long haul flights and introducing new contracts to new joiners.

Lets try this again eh? "The cabin crew agreed to exactly the same terms that the flight crews did right from the beginning" but Walsh would not accept it.

Possibly because cabin crew are easier to hire and train than pilots? Possibly because their pay is more out of sync with the industry – BA pilots are not especially well paid compared to other airlines BUT their terms and conditions, i.e. working hours etc, are more favourable.

Fair enough, its a perk is it not ?

If its in their coontract it could be difficult ?

Lets try this again eh? "The cabin crew agreed to exactly the same terms that the flight crews did right from the beginning" but Walsh would not accept it.

Possibly because cabin crew are easier to hire and train than pilots? Possibly because their pay is more out of sync with the industry – BA pilots are not especially well paid compared to other airlines BUT their terms and conditions, i.e. working hours etc, are more favourable.

and… so why then are they portrayed to be thieving pikies who have done nothing but try to line their own pockets?
They understand the situation and offered a compromise (the same that the other BA employees were offered), Walsh has done nothing but try to f*ck them over.

Neither I nor my brother see it ending well, but I'm annoyed by the constant bleating on here that there trying to destroy the business, the business is trying to destroy itself.

for example – there was an offer on the table that could have been a basis for settlement. After the vote in favour of strike but before any action this offer was removed and the staff side were told it would not be offered again only a reduced offer. Remember at that point no strike action had been taken

The offer was clearly only offered as long as no strike action/date was announced while negotiations continued.

Despite which; Unite announced that if resolution wasn't found, they would strike on March x/y/z (forgive me, don't remember what 3 days they were on strike last week).

From that point on BA started losing money in refunds / cancellations / lost bookings. And they withdrew the offer, as they said they would, and replaced it with a different (inferior) one. Then Unite started on that if BA reinstated the prvious offer they'd talk again.

I have sympathies with both sides here but on this point, whether you consider them fair over the withdrawal of the offer at least they have stuck to their position.

I think its fair. They are financially hurting the company.

All boils down to. Why are the Unions so against dropping one member from each crew? Can't they understand the need? BA isnt a public sector company ffs.

why should they have the right to just completely change his terms & conditions, after he's provided them 15 years service?

Didn't he get a salary too? fk me, things change over the course of 15 years, you can't expect things never to change.

source, my brother a fricken BA Trolley dolley, you know them that are stiking!

With respect, that's not a particularly impartial source.

BA isnt a public sector company ffs.

What is your point caller?

Public sector is run differently to someone like BA. BA is at the mercy of market forces no?

Thats a point. Hold a meeting with all the crews and say 'would you prefer to work for Ryaniar'? 😯

Mr W. Walsh is no fool.
Prior to the strike, he parked dozens & dozens of aircraft away from H’row so any air images on TV and in the papers won’t look bad.

If you’re a plane spotter, it’s plane heaven at H’row at present as he’s sub contracting much of the work out to smaller carriers as they’re not on strike.

If you believe it’s simply because they want one less cabin crew on each flight, then you need to take your head out of the sand!

"Despite which; Unite announced that if resolution wasn't found, they would strike on March x/y/z (forgive me, don't remember what 3 days they were on strike last week)"

there are clear reasons for that though – already 1 ballot declared invalid & another taken (still heavily "for"). Once done, they had a smallish window within which to actually take action and have to give notice (1 calendar week ?) prior to doing so. I believe they left it to pretty much the last minute and BA management would have been well aware of that too.

(I'm in the "both sides are going to bugger this up" camp, BTW – and I'm booked on a BA flight for an upcoming potential strike day)

Public sector is run differently to someone like BA. BA is at the mercy of market forces no?

Of course, I just don't see what relevance it has to the discussion.

TJ you do like to make us laugh with your views. 😆

"In Germany this would never have happened as there is not the culture of confrontation from both sides."

Have a read below.

All travelers that are heading into Germany are preparing for even further delays. This news comes as pilots from Lufthansa prepare for a second strike next month. Pilots at the airline, which is actually the largest airline in all of Germany, will walk out for four days starting April 13th in a dispute over pay and job security.

This decision follows a strike at the German flag carrier that took place in February. Pilots returned to work just one day after the strike took place. They choose to return following a decision by unions to resume negotiation with the airline.

Lufthansa has been seeking to reduce costs amid falling demand and big financial losses. The German airline did say in a recent statement that the latest offer was compatible with the company’s situation and economic condition. Pilots will be told they must accept a pay freeze that lasts up to two years.

Neither I nor my brother see it ending well, but I'm annoyed by the constant bleating on here that there trying to destroy the business, the business is trying to destroy itself.

Look I can understand why your brother is upset and why other cabin crew are upset. It fecked me right off when I got made redundant and then had to take a job at 20% less pay than before. But that's business and it really doesn't matter how you feel.

Of course BA management are not trying to destroy the company. Apart from anything else that is completely illegal. By law, directors have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, which means by law they are required to put their shareholders interests first and foremost within the wider legal context of operating a business (i.e. all those laws that sort of make unions technically redundant from their original purpose which was to prevent shady and down right dangerous working practices).

The cabin crew are being villified because the media and public at large generally see their behaviour (or more accurately the unions behaviour as it's the union that's stoking this boiler) as being that of a spoilt child. They get paid vastly better than the rest of the industry and they aren't really being asked to swallow anything more painful than the rest of us have had to swallow. On top of which, their actions cause misery and grief to hundreds of thousands of passengers.

flaperon, as he's not taken part in the ballot or strike (due to sickness) you'll just have to take my word he's impartial. Can't see anyone else offering anything but daily mail style abuse.

t®ibal©hief – Member

why should they have the right to just completely change his terms & conditions, after he's provided them 15 years service?

Didn't he get a salary too? fk me, things change over the course of 15 years, you can't expect things never to change.

So you'd just roll over and accept it, if it was done to you?
(unlike BA stewards who offered to accept the previous offer to other BA staff had, but were told no)

I thought we lived in a society where long service was a sign of your respect for a decent company, not one where the longer your with a company the more the f*ck you over. Hey ho.

TJ you do like to make us laugh with your views.

"In Germany this would never have happened as there is not the culture of confrontation from both sides."

Actually by and large TJ is right on this one. Unions play a very different role in Germany to that here. They are not typically confrontational, but rather act in collaboration with the employers. There are exceptions and the one cited here is just that, but other wise, it is quite different. It's one of the underpinnings of Germany being known as an 'alliance capitalism' rather than the UK/US 'anglo saxon' model of capitalism.

BA is at the mercy of market forces no?

Agree. While I feel sorry that the staff are facing the prospect of change, they need make the company still attractive to customers to keep the company in business.

No business = No jobs. Its happened to other UK companies, and the governement has already showed that its doesn't care about UK based companies going to the dog (Rover)

I am one person that can't trust what will happen at BA in the future and have taken my money elsewhere for my flights to New Zealand.
My company has also issued instructions to use alternative airlines for its business travel – may only be a small number of BA's customers, but if other companies are going this way………

I think it is totally fair enough.

Shooting themselves in the foot really with striking, they'll soon have no job to return to.

Fair enough. I'm no fan of either side in this dispute, but all's fair in love, war and industrial action. Walsh is just using everything at his disposal to save the company from the irresponsible actions of his crew.

I no longer work for BA but I am a BA Pensioner (or at least will be one day!). These people are jeopardising my future as well as theirs, so for me it's personal.

There has to be some consequences to their actions, and hitting them where it hurts most is a good thing. Staff Travel is a seriously good perk, and why many of them come to work. 1-0 to Walsh I think, but the game's not over yet.

Public sector is run differently to someone like BA. BA is at the mercy of market forces no?

Of course, I just don't see what relevance it has to the discussion.

I think the point being made here is that BA was originally publically owned and the contracts that are in place for many long standing employees are a legacy from that time and thus don't reflect current market conditions.

Which makes the Unions actions even more bizarre. They can see where they used to be, where they need to be to survive. Its hardly as though the competitors info and situation etc etc info isnt freely available is it?!

Its almost as tho they are saying 'we would rather break the companies back than make any concession'.

BA need to break the Union. Sad that its coming to this 🙁

'we would rather break the companies back than make any concession'

Nail

Head

Hit

To be fair to Unite, I strongly suspect this has a lot more to do with establishing their strength for the future battles that will inevitably follow versus a desire to specifically see BA hurt. They are using this dispute to show their teeth so that when the bigger battles arise, their opponents fear them more. Which sort of make the cabin crew naive pawns in their game.