V10

To some extent, hence my reference to "large international corporations". It probably holds for most publicly traded companies and I would think to a lesser extent with private companies, but BA is not alone in this. As ever, however many "wrongs" you might have still doesn't make it "right".

krispy84

As requested above by Mods and others, I'm going to take a step back and evaluate my posts on this thread more critically than perhaps I have been thus far. As part of that, there are 2 points l would like to tease out:

• Non-BA Posters: Let's be more mindful of the human impact of what we are discussing. We might believe in the necessity of redundancies, even large scale redundancies, but let us not forget there is an individual with thoughts and feelings behind each one of those numbers. That individual could be reading our post.
• BA Posters: There will be people with views you strongly disagree with and would prefer not to read. Those individuals are still entitled to air those views on FT and on this thread (subject to rules etc). They are not all 'BA plants', they are just bringing a different perspective.

Play the ball, aggressively and with passion, but always the ball not the person. Please do not try and assign motive just because you don't agree with someone's viewpoint.

Agent69

But posting vitriol and hatred of non BA staff is fine? I assume you are also happy with anyone not towing the UNITE line being accused of being a BA plant?

Can I help you

Show me where anyone said “anyone not towing the UNITE line being accused of being a BA plant” ?

13901

I think that the overwhelming majority of BA employees understand the need for change and understand that redundancies will take place.

What we should all remember, on this forum, is a couple of things:

1. emotions. I read some posts here and I think that a fair few of their authors have either never been made redundant or risked that. We can be armchair psychologists as much as we like, say clichés like “you’ll find something else” or “my friends are losing their jobs too” but... it’s different when it’s your job to be on the line. It hasn’t been fun when it happened to me and I can only imagine how it must be for somebody who worked at BA all his working life, as many did. Yesterday a friend who went through JAL’s bankruptcy and now is threatened by BA’s cuts; she was venting her grief with us and it was heartbreaking. We should be mindful of that. And sure, one could argue that cutting WW/EF's wages was on the cards since 2010, that they were 'on borrowed time' and whatnot but... it's still a massive kick in the median zone. If somebody can react to a "hey, your new pay is 50% of what you used to get, but you have free uniform AND meals onboard" without even an ounce of emotions then he or she needs a lift back to planet Vulcan.
2. BA’s conduct. BA’s approach to these things has gone from bad to absolutely ghastly in recent years. OK, you need to make cuts: why being gratuitously nasty? Why refusing early retirements, VR, why threaten mass fire and rehire, why go down to the pettiness of taking out 2 days holiday allowance from the current MF contracts, why insisting on changing provisions on grievance and sickness? And why restarting consultation on departments such as CLC, who just went through it (with associated culls) only last year?! It’s things like these that in my view justify the criticism against BA. I have dozens of examples where they could’ve followed the decent way forward and instead went for brutal and nasty.

flygirl68

How on earth did you come to that conclusion? Nobody in my home is working at the moment, either furloughed or just out of education, and I am the only one involved in any way with aviation. Your comment is completely unnecessary.

And to your last point, your former colleague’s colleagues may be on a 3 day week, but will be being payed 100% for those 3 days. Hopefully for them things will get better quicker than expected. I WILL be taking a 50% pay cut for working exactly the same timeframes that I do now, and that is forever. Bit different.

LTN Phobia

As a mere passenger, I am caught between a rock and a hard place. While I fully appreciate the need to reduce costs and have a lean business operation and serious difficulties the aviation industry is facing, I am feeling rather disturbed by the way the matter has been handled so far. From my bystander's perspective, it seems to have been handled in quite a callous and opportunistic way, which is deeply disappointing to me personally.

I have been avoiding using certain businesses (e.g. airlines, suppliers etc.) because of the issues of how they treat their staff members, and I really would not have liked to see BA added to my 'do not use' list on the basis of how staff members are treated.

At the same time, I think to myself, if everyone ends up stopping using them (although it's unlikely), would that have even more adverse effects on the business, and would that have even more adverse effects on humans (e.g. staff members - sometimes seemingly forgotten that they are indeed humans!)? That leaves me in a strange dilemma. I don't want to spend money with businesses that treat their staff members badly, but would the withdrawal of my business contribute in some way (if enough people did the same) to their being treated even worse?

One thing is for sure though. I cannot deny that the hard products and catering on BA are quite mediocre (Club Suite excepted, but it's not on all routes yet, so I have yet to experience it), and it has been the staff members that largely contributed to BA retaining my business, and I would really like to see them treated in a fair and reasonable manner, with compassion and in the spirit of cooperation, rather than as disposable numbers, even in difficult times.

BOH

Yes you are correct, this is two different ways of looking at a pay cut here. Whilst the take-home pay is cut in both cases, staff in the company my colleague works in will have 2 days off per week and (at least in theory) could find additional work to offset this cut in pay. Not the case in all situations such as yours if this is what is implemented. Understood.

jonas123

Whilst I understand BA's proposals are punitive to certain populations of cabin crew, is there any significant change for existing MF crew? If all crew are placed onto a single fleet, it would make sense to sweeten the MF offer from their current position just to get half the crew onside.

The issue I have with Unite's approach is that obviously BA's first proposal would be extreme, with the knowledge that concessions would have to be made at some point. It would be incredibly foolish of them to have a starting point where they intended to finish up - and from what has been said already it seems that the pilot's had at least got to a better position before the second S188 was issued. So surely Unite should have at least spent a couple of weeks negotiating a counter proposal and if that was not to their liking, they could then launch a PR campaign.

I do feel bad for the legacy crew, but given the scale of this crisis I find it hard to see how they will come out of this anywhere close to their existing contracts. I really think BA will be a much smaller carrier on the otherside of this.

BOH

Exactly this

Ancient Observer

I do not like BA's approach - 13901 put it nicely.
I do not like Unite's approach. I didn't like it in 2010 either!

I worry about any future flights with BA - Years of "enhancements" and now apparently deliberately awful Employee Relations. Why, oh why, are BA going at it in this way? I'm glad I did my intensive long haul on business some years ago!

Ancient Observer

Does anyone know why Comrade Len involves himself in this? Where are the National Officials?

Will100

I broadly disagree with your interpretation.

His comments on the June date suggested, to me, that he thought a deal would be done.

It’s quite OK for him to speak, he is more senior than Alex. He was also quite clear about Alex’s pay, no bonus no pay rise last year.

He also answered quite well given the goading nature of the interview with various ‘facts’ taken from union propaganda and suspect red tops.

I support the staff, but I find it incredible how one sided the posts on this forum are.

BOH

I just read your post shortly after posting my thoughts in the specific thread on the WW LBC interview. Is reassuring you got this feeling as is exactly what I took from WWs statement to the June 15th date.

BOH

Maybe another glimmer of hope.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52983756