BA treatment of workers

[whenwillthemadnessend]

The way BA have treated the tax payer and their workers is an absolute disgrace.

Furlough thousands of employees at the cost to the tax payer of 36million

(When their profits were 1.1billion in 2019. )

Then making those same employees redundant with the intention of reemployment later at much reduced T&C.

Anyone agree that those companies that take furlough and make people redundant while on it should be forced to pay the furlough back.

[araiwa]

You think making them all redundant 3 months ago would have been better?

[whenwillthemadnessend]

Of course not, but taking money with one hand that is supposed to protect jobs and then still getting rid of people when you have 1.1 billion profit is just so morally wrong.

All of us are going to have to pay this money back. It's going to affect everyone so company's should not allowed to get away with it.

[VenusClapTrap]

Yanbu. BA is a disgrace.

[araiwa]

It protected jobs for 3 months

[Milssofadoesntreallyfit]

All business, no matter their size are going to need a decent amount of equity in order to have any chance of recovering from this.
They are also going to need skeleton staff in place to keep an eye on the business during lockdown and to start picking business back up when it's over.
If they pay all those staff our of their profits and the skeleton staff they still have on top of the overheads, there quite possibly won't be enough capital left to then re start the business. One of the main reasons will be once they start again and re-employment staff their wages will need to be paid before income stabilises, if they use most of that now they may well run out of cash.

For most businesses they need to hold on to capital for rebooting business. The capital needed will be relative, for BA they may well need a huge amount to allow this to happen, hence why they have done things this way.
Many businesses who don't have healthy profits from previous years to hold on to in order to restart will never reopen again. That's what a lot of the funding us for, to protect business finances so they can use funding now and then use their capital once business has resumed. Without it the business would soon disappear with the capital.

It is hard to comprehend how much money is needed to start and build a business, especially the size of BA and on paper yez it looks wrong but if they want any chance of picking up where they left off they as many businesses need to do it this way.

[AlwaysCheddar]

I thought only the longer service staff would be affected by reduced pay and t&c. So newer staff had no change. Some of these older staff have very high salaries which are not in line with newer staff and industry standards, and perks which is not sustainable for a company. His would you feel if you were a stewardess earning £15k but your colleague earner twice as much for the same job? Also, furloughing staff to protect them from hardship was the right thing to do imo.

[Littleblackdress04]

The problem with BA sacking 42,000 staff and then remploying 30,000 on poverty pay contracts is the precedent it sets. Huw Merriman the chair of the transport committee plus some others are trying to get emergency legislation through parliament to stop ‘fire and hire’ because if BA do it, what’s to stop any employer doing it?

BA are a national disgrace by the way- my friend is crew with them.

[AlwaysCheddar]

Regardless, it’s still crap if you’re BA staff and affected.

[Littleblackdress04]

My friend is on an ‘old’ contract and will lose 60% of her pay if it happens. It’s disgusting

[GCAcademic]

Gordon Ramsay is doing the same apparently.

[YeahWhatevver]

Capatalism in action.

But I agree YANBU.

[Winterwoollies]

My cousin works for BA. She found out about being furloughed via BBC news. They don’t tell their loyal staff anything. It’s a kick in the teeth.

[user1487194234]

It is hard for individuals but lots of companies will be reducing salaries and perks and BA has a historic issue with some staff on much better contracts than other staff doing the same job
That is probably unsustainable in current times

[notimagain]

It is hard to comprehend how much money is needed to start and build a business, especially the size of BA and on paper yez it looks wrong but if they want any chance of picking up where they left off they as many businesses need to do it this way.

Problem is it doesn't appear as if BA are just trying to bring in changes to get over the next few months, year or so..if that was the case I think many at BA might buy into what BA are doing.

The issue is that it very much appears that BA want to use this as an opportunity to force a permanent change of contract onto all their staff....and anybody who has spent any time at BA will tell you that is something WW has been keen to do for years, especially when it comes to cabin crew contracts.

It's also worth looking across the aviation world and seeing how other companies are managing this... it's also of interest to me that BA are being remarkable tight lipped about a resumption of flying when other operators are hinting at there being a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel and are publishing schedules for late summer.

FWIW I'm not a member of Unite.

[LuaDipa]

Working conditions will be changing for a lot of people in the current climate. I don’t think it’s unfair for a business to review it’s current structures and benefits when the Indy is changing and it is unknown how long this will continue. Had BA not made use of the furlough scheme many people would have been made redundant 3 months ago. At least they have had time to consider their position and make a more informed decision rather than just laying everyone off to save the wages bill when the crisis kicked in.

[LuaDipa]

*Indy = world.

[notimagain]

Working conditions will be changing for a lot of people in the current climate. I don’t think it’s unfair for a business to review it’s current structures and benefits when the Indy is changing and it is unknown how long this will continue.

I don't necessarily disagree with some of that, it's just a pity BA didn't review it's structures and benefits in an upwards direction when it was making a billion plus STG profit per annum within the last year or two.

It's the "one way"/ratcheting of T&Cs that has coloured perceptions of the company and is behind some of the current outcry..Certainly IMHO there is absolutely zero room to trim Mixed Fleet T&Cs....unless people expect them to take up residence in the LHR car parks..