An Open Letter from your Mixed Fleet Unite reps to:
Karen Slinger, Head of Inflight Customer Experience; Ian Romanis, Manager Mixed Fleet and iCSP; Melanie Birch, Head of Employee Relations;
Troy Warfield, Director of Customer Experience and
Alex Cruz, Chairman and CEO British Airways

25th January, 2017

Dear management team,

In your recent email sent out at the end of last week, we were advised that you want to give our valued members a pay rise and resume the focus on growing British Airways Mixed Fleet. Both of these objectives are actually also at the heart of what Mixed Fleet Unite is trying to achieve.

Our goals remain as follows:

● A fair pay rise for all Mixed Fleet colleagues, one that allows them to achieve a genuine living wage and is a true reflection of the work that we put into making Mixed Fleet and British Airways a success. A reward package that allows our members to live and commute into one of the most expensive areas to live and work in the country. British Airways’ achieved and projected profits for this financial year tell both us as a branch, as well as our members, that British Airways is able to achieve this whilst remaining competitive.

● A fit for purpose pay bargaining group for our Customer Service Managers

● Parity with the pilots in terms of the Elapsed Hourly Rate.

Industrial action is not an easy step for anyone to take and it should be recognised that our members feel they have had no alternative. We have worked hard to avoid this, attempting to negotiate with yourselves for months before reaching this point. We disagree that paying what we are asking for would make British Airways and Mixed Fleet uncompetitive. We think that actually investing in your front-line crew will allow a sustainable model moving forward. This will in fact allow you to become the most admired airline across the world’s key cities.

Your reluctance to offer a reasonable pay deal to our members, yet spend what we believe is now reaching millions of pounds in trying to quash strike action, suggests money is available and this is a question of ideology. We URGE you to recognise that there is a chance here for British Airways to take a different route. Try something new and recognise and reward your unique selling point, the face of the airline, your cabin crew. Key players in the business industry recognise that a happy, appreciated and well rewarded workforce is the most powerful tool to making your business a success and we call upon you to try this out for yourselves.

Mixed Fleet’s pay, terms and conditions fall far short of competitors, both in the UK and in the flag carrying, premium airline category. The Manchester-based, Thomson Airways crew operating the Boeing 737 you chartered in last week to cover our industrial action for example, are on a considerably more competitive package than their Mixed Fleet counterparts. With a starting basic salary of £13,989, and an elapsed hourly rate of £3.69 plus a 12% commission rate, that Thomson Airways crew would also have earned day off and working up and minimum crew payments. As a charter airline, Thomson Airways operate on razor sharp profit margins and yet they are able to pay their cabin crews not only a truly competitive wage but fair terms and conditions. They are able to live in parts of the country where the average rent or mortgage is a fraction of the cost of London.

Throughout your communications to members and non-members alike, you have continued to claim that the union have rejected offering the corporate deal to our members. It has to be stressed that we initially offered the corporate pay deal to all MFU members back in Spring 2016. This was rejected by 93% of our membership. If the membership asked for this deal to be offered again, we as a democratic, member led branch would approach you to discuss this. So far, our members continue to stand by their decision that they will not be happy with neither the corporate deal, nor a lack of bargaining rights for CSMs. The mandate from our members for continued industrial action remains as does their resolve and we will be required to provide the seven day’s notice of future strikes until such time as this dispute is settled.

84% of our members have at some point suffered from stress and depression as a result of their financial circumstances since joining British Airways. Nearly half of our members have had to take on a second job to pay their rent and have any level of comfortable living. We ask that you look to reinstate the bonus to our members who have taken strike action. We also call on you to reinstate the staff travel benefit, one that is referred to as ‘the only true, remaining benefit of the job’ to allow a fair work life balance.

The airline has continued to tell members and non-members alike that you are open to reasonable talks with us, so we would like to reiterate our position that we have always been open to come back to the table. We urge you to avoid any further dispute and do the right thing for your cabin crew and our customers by engaging with Mixed Fleet Unite to negotiate a genuinely meaningful way forward. We would suggest that we get back around the table, with the starting point being the encouraging start that we made at ACAS before Christmas.

Kind regards,

Mixed Fleet Unite