So, cabin crew vote for a 12 day strike over Christmas and New Year.

Will any rational person ever fly the world's worst airline again.

This will surely push the airline over the brink and out of business?

Sad end to what should be a good company.

Shuddup foo! I aint gettin on no plane

Jolsa, isn't it time for your milk?

Union rule eh? Brilliant.

Want to be unemployed? Join a strong union.

Willy Walsh is tough as nails. They're looking to downsize the cabin crew anyway, i suspect ultimatums will be issued and the strike will be averted.

bloody better get back to work, i;m flying with them on the 28th. S.O. pissed off she's BA Cityflyer so is getting crap and not even involved in the industrial action

Want to be unemployed? Join a strong union.

Wise words. Save those monthly union subs and just let BA make you unemployed instead.

They'll make them unemployed no matter what the union do. That's if they actually manage to stay in business after this.

Interestingly unionised workplaces have better terms and conditions of employment ( better holiday pay / sick pay and better rates of pay), you are less likely to be unfairly dismissed or victimised and less likely to be made redundant.

proof?

As far as I can see and from my experience of being forced into a Union in the past, they do nothing but damage. If the management do relent and don't make people redundant then the company struggles to compete from that point on because they're now employing people who don't earn their keep.

Why do you think BA are taking these measures? For fun? Or could there be a sound financial reason for it? Is the continued success of the business more important than the staff that are being laid off?

you are less likely to be unfairly dismissed or victimised and less likely to be made redundant.

Shush will you TJ…why do you have to go letting facts and figures get in the way of a STW union bashing thread. FFS… 🙂

Why do you think BA are taking these measures?

To keep shareholders happy ?

It looks like either a very brave or very foolish move for a union leader to take their members into strike action in an industry that is forecast to lose $11 billion dollars in 2009 with no sign of any return to profitability until 2011 at the earliest.

Samurai – BAs responsibility is to their shareholders – so to improve profitability workers get shafted. In unionised workplaces shareholders get less and workers more as a share of the cake.

I doubt I can find you any facts and figures that will convince you

I am due to fly home on the 28th, will now have to book another flight with another airline just to make sure i can get home and use this ticket for the next rotation.

Normal score of holding folk to randsom at holiday times, good old Unions not.

BA are well past their best now and have been for a few years now IMO and to be fair i have no sympathy for companies who made huge profits for so long and never prepared for a downturn. Let the markets sort it out.

TandemJeremy my past experiance working in none or union companys
in the past Both companies put the share holders first and cut
throat the work force and pay less so nope do not agree on what
you have just written.

Grantway – the point being that in a unionised workplace with collective bargaining you have a better chance of getting a share of the pie than without unionisation.

In this case the intervention of the union will hopefully mean the pain is shared between all concerned – not just the workers being scarificed to maintain profits

Unions destroying English companies – who knew!!!!!! 🙄

One of the reasons I don't fly BA as they are shoddy, destroy your luggage and always on strike when you're about to buy tickets…

LOL@

Jolsa – Member
Shuddup foo! I aint gettin on no plane

The pain is going to be shared by all concerned.

BA will lose loads of business and that lost business will be picked up by foreign airlines who do the same thing, cheaper.

I will say with a union involved the people can have a chance
to save there own job and also the union may save more but to what
cost for the remaining staff in duties and the magic word of
flexibility

Flew BMI to the states as a Star Alliance booking, the facilities were superb and the crew were first rate. While there we flew with Ted internally again no issues. We had to change return flight because of a hurricane and wound up on some BA pos with goosed internal door seal where we were sat and no hot food, to be fair the cabin crew we were sat opposite (a Rochdale lass) couldn't do enough to for us and kept us supplied with brews all the way to Manchester.

I think striking over Christmas is a serious own-goal. Obviously they want to cause the maximum possible disruption, but the message that their customers are going to get is that BA staff are quite happy to leave them spending the Festive Period in an airport or paying a fortune for last minute flights.

I'm not flying this xmas but it shouldn't affect many flights from the poxy regional airport I and many others use – they're the ones with lots of decent direct flights and plenty to Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt.

Sorry BA but your policy of centralising on Heathrow lost my business yonks ago.

(Manchester's my local).

Or that the damage to profits will be so great that the management will negotiate rather than dictate?

if the management will negotiate in good faith the union will call the strike off.

"if the management will negotiate in good faith the union will call the strike off."

That rather supposes that the management actually have the financial headroom to negotiate. Given the state of BA's pension scheme, it's arguable whether the proposed changes to the terms and conditions of future staff (it doesn't impact current staff) go far enough.

BA Profits ?

Since they want to get rid of a load of cabin crew anyway, can't they just sack some of those on strike? No pensions to worry about, no redundancy to make, ideal.

Might be followed by a few more cabin crew but since the pilots can't strike the planes keep flying. Empty, unfortunately.

Number of problems caused by unions outweighs the advantages. Even though I am, sheepishly, still a member on mine. 🙂

I blame Thatcher, she should have done the job properly and killed off the Union Movement when she had the chance 😉

There are good unions and bad unions, same as good management and bad management. BA and the Post Office seem to have an abundance of bad unions and bad manmagement.

Thats me and two others booked on Afriqia from Tripoli to London on the 28th, actually the airframe is newer than BA, seats in Business are superior to the trash BA put on the London Tripoli route and the timings suit me better. Only downside it is Libyan and you cannot get a drink, no biggy when you are on your way home. BA has lost another 3k tonight just in my office.

So much for flying the flag for UK Plc,

Or that the damage to profits will be so great that the management will negotiate rather than dictate?

And that's where most of the union dogma falls to bits. Most unions can't see beyond the immediate needs and wants of their members. They seem to think it's just a case of the management not sharing out the profits fairly. Time to wake up, BA (more so than other airlines) has lost lots of passengers, it does therefore not NEED as many staff. If it does keep staff it doesn't need it will be even more uncompetitive and lose even more customers meaning it needs fewer staff still. See the spiral here? Royal Mail syndrome.

BA management have two choices, give into the unions and go bust (there won't be any government bail out for them) or slash jobs and have a chance of continuing to employ the remaining staff. I just can't see why the unionite collective bargining champions can't see this.

Unions do have a place, I've said it before, they need to be there to protect individual employees so they aren't victimised or bullied. They can help maintain and improve welfare and safety standards. They can even negotiate better severance deals when companies do unfairly select people for the chop. What they cannot sustainably do is to artificially keep people in jobs that don't exist.

Interestingly unionised workplaces have better terms and conditions of employment ( better holiday pay / sick pay and better rates of pay)

Can't dispute that, don't have the facts, to be honest it feels true. What would be interesting to know though is the percentage of unionised to non-unionised companies in different bsuiness sectors and compare that figure to say 10 and 20 years ago. Would be interesting to see if more unionised companies have gone to the wall. My guess is more will have but I don't have any facts to back that up. Better terms are only useful whilst your employer is still in business 😉 .

Business' tend to get the Unions they deserve, IME

Stumpy – or the 3rd option – negotiate to make transition as painfree as possible? Most unions when faced with reasonableness are reasonable – sometimes too much so IMO

nick c – absolutly right.

Shandy – Member
The pain is going to be shared by all concerned.

BA will lose loads of business and that lost business will be picked up by foreign airlines who do the same thing, cheaper.

Almost like the British motor industry….

BA cabin staff are already the best paid in the industry. BA pilots, engineers and ground crew have already realised that cutbacks are needed and are working with it. The effing union jobsworths are sticking their oar in, doing it over Christmas deliberately to **** up people's lives. Selfish ****.

*sniggers*

Interestingly unionised workplaces have better terms and conditions of employment ( better holiday pay / sick pay and better rates of pay), you are less likely to be unfairly dismissed or victimised and less likely to be made redundant.

So they would be the mines, the shipyards, British Leyland, British Steel, the trainmakers, the UK electronics manufacturers…

Hardly any redundancies there then. Not arguing that union support is a handy thing to an individual, but the knobs at BA are looking at a fast way to join the dole queue.

Business' tend to get the Unions they deserve, IME

Pretty much spot on. P*ss poor British management in action.

Hardly any redundancies there then. Not arguing that union support is a handy thing to an individual, but the knobs at BA are looking at a fast way to join the dole queue.

Well some of the workforce in this country aren't meek and want to fight for their jobs, some of them will end up on the dole, this is action is merely part of the bargaining process to minimise the numbers.

The effing union jobsworths are sticking their oar in, doing it over Christmas deliberately to **** up people's lives. Selfish ****.

I would have thought that you of all people would appreciate the selfish nature of these people.

Unite claims the changes affect contractual terms and conditions. We believe they do not. The union failed to gain an injunction to prevent their introduction, but a full court hearing to settle the contractual question has been set for February 2010.

We do not understand why Unite is threatening you with disrupted travel plans now over an issue that the courts are preparing to resolve in a few weeks.

This is from the BA statement here, now if thats true then the union needs a proper kicking, I think they reckon they are going to lose

BA cabin staff are already the best paid in the industry

Really!!???!!! No really!!??!!

Other half on a good month with lots of nights away brings home £1500 max. I'd hate to be in those other companies if this is the best paid. Or is it some minority to which you refer.