To think British Airways are treating their staff like shit in a crisis

[littleblackdress04]

BA announced that they are making 12,000 staff redundant last week but what they didn’t announce in the press is that they are also making the rest of their cabin crew redundant and reemploying the chosen few in terrible contracts. If they get sick, they will be sacked.

My friend has been worldwide crew for 25 years- she has a permanent contract and earns about 27k a year. She will, on the new contract, move to a zero hours contract on about 14k a year. She has 2 kids and a mortgage and shares childcare with her ex when she is flying. It’s not easy for her but she has always been proud to work for BA.

They used government furlough money to supposedly save their jobs and have now given them all 45 days notice. Only the chosen ones will be invited to apply for the 13k jobs.

Yes, it’s difficult times but is basically telly f staff with 25 years service to fuck off the behaviour of a decent company?

BA are currently buying another airline so they aren’t skint. They are using this as a chance to shaft loyal hardworking staff.

Aibu? (And is it even legal?)

Any business will take on the person prepared to do the job adequately for the lowest salary. (Unfortunately). If enough people are happy with the terms they offer, that's up to the individual. If they're not, the company will need to up their offerings.

BA’s poverty wages are also nowhere near a London living wage- where a lot of crew live.

It is Dire Straits for all airlines at this time... However speaking as ex BA crew of 23 years, I agree with the OP, that it's terrible what the company is doing. They have been wanting to get rid of the "old contract" "expensive" cabin crews for years, and years, and they're seizing their chance now with this crisis. I'm gutted for my former colleagues, and I really hope that the unions can do as much as they can to help them.

Airlines have extremely high fixed costs in the form of massive aeroplanes. They are currently operating at 1% of their capacity. What else do you suggest they do? If they go bust then none of their staff will have jobs.

What do I expect BA to do? To not cynically use Covid as a chance to put their staff on shit insecure contracts & remove all their employment rights like sick pay etc. To behave like a decent company who respects their employees. It’s a choice- covid or not

Why is everyone so keen to race to the bottom and allow employers to do whatever they want? Honestly this country depresses me sometimes.

zero hour contracts are shit for anyone imv

Same @dayslikethese1, and employers will exploit this and make things worse for many who are made to feel fortunate to just have a job still. Zero hours are only really good if you have another source of income or aren't reliant on x amount each month to pay the bills. A lot of my friends with children are happy on zero hours because of the flexibility, but then again their partners earn enough to pay everything if need be, plus students etc who are earning money but don't need it for the roof over their head. For anyone fully dependent on that wage, I really can't seeing the flexibility outweighing the uncertainty as to whether you would be able to keep a roof over your head and food on the table. As there wouldn't be set shifts it's not even like you would be able to get another more stable job alongside.

It’s so sad how so many people are just shrugging their shoulders and saying ZHC is fine as it could be worse. We’re going to end up like America at this rate.

BA are a very rich company but they strip all the profit out to give to shareholders so don’t have any cash in reserve to pay out for a rainy day. They have been itching to do this for ages. I’m not in the airline industry but I recall the strikes a few years ago when their staff objected to the airline turning into Ryanair and being treated like shit.

The days of BA being a world class, great airline are long gone. They are almost long haul Ryanair now. Compare an Emirates journey with a BA one and it’s like the difference between shopping in Waitrose and Asda. Doesn’t stop the airline from charging top dollar though for a deteriorating experience.

Luckily I have enough money (for now) to avoid companies who treat their staff badly.

Gatwick airport in news today
40000 people unemployed in the local area due to impact of virus

It's not just BA, it's worldwide

Tellmetruth4 you put it better than I could have done.

Not sure if it’s already been mentioned but Rolls Royce are talking of cutting 8000 jobs as a result of this and the aviation industry.
That’s 20000 gone in two days connected to BA.

Silly question but can’t BA just continue to furlough their staff even if the redundancies are inevitable? Atleast the staff get paid by the government and they get some time to look at other options.
I think the only people safe in this crisis are public sector workers and supermarkets workers.

I’m sorry for your friend.
Zero hours are just crap and should be banned.
I was in a park cafe and overheard the owner conducting an interview where he was telling the person they may be sent home part way through a shift or when they get there.

How is that feasible when you’ve got kids? You’ve paid for childcare, got them there, paid to commute and then work go “naaa not today”.
Nurseries need set hours, mortgages and rentals need set hours to prove income.

Just to add on this, IAG is the parent company of BA: "IAG has total undrawn general and committed aircraft financing facilities equivalent to €2.1 billion currently, compared to €1.9 billion at the end of 2019. IAG has not drawn down on any of its facilities."

"What is also interesting is that Wille Walsh, Chief Executive of IAG, has not stopped the billion euro purchase or Air Europa. "

They used the government scheme, despite having funding. They got the tax payers to pay for all this, and now they're going to sack their staff anyway. Pretty disgusting to be honest.

Is that legal in the UK? How can a job be redundant if the person then needs to be hired back?

It is just where we now are and flights are likely to be one of the sectors most affected and already have been.

The furlogh scheme is costing all of us huge amounts many of us not getting any similar compensation and is allowed to be used far far too widely in my view even if a company cannot prove it is affected by CV19 they still get this free money which nurses, teachers and I and many others will be paying for through higher taxes next year, no doubt.

Cabin crew on £25k now down to £13k in London probably can get some universal credit if they don't have savings and no second family income or could move I suppose to 40 mins drive from luton or something like that for cheaper rents but I certainly agree that being asked to halve your pay is very difficult for many, although better than dying or losing all your pay.

I’m not a big fan of zero hours contracts, but at the same time I’m not sure what else they were supposed to do.

Demand for their service is virtually zero. They don’t know when that demand will return, even at very modest levels. They have an expensive workforce that they can’t afford to keep up. They have enormous overheads in maintaining and storing their planes.

Unemployment in the travel industry will be absolutely shocking. Just give it a month or so.

@Miajk just to point out that that lending facilities figure includes aircraft financing facilities, which couldn't be used to pay employment costs. Just a quick look at the IAG accounts shows that the group has net debt of €7.6bn, which includes lease liabilities of €11bn. Analyst consensus is that the group will post an operating loss for FY20 of €1.4bn. Not saying that what they're doing is right, but it also isn't right to suggest that they're rolling in money that they could pay staff who are not currently being used for an extended period. It could easily be five years before traffic levels rebuild to last year's level, if ever.

I’ve been working for over 40 years in both the public and private sectors and to be honest all employers are like this in my experience.
I think you have to approach any job with the mindset this is what I am being paid this month but it can change at any time.
In return do your job to a reasonable level but don’t go above and beyond it really isn’t worth it.

What exactly do you mean by doing it “properly”? What do you suggest they do?

@Bedroomdilemma
Yes it’s legal, it’s been done thousands of times in the uk before, in almost every sector.
I remember when Mercedes did it to all their dealerships. They all went on strike.

Fairyliz - I agree. A job is just a job. They can get rid of you at any time,

So it appears new BA contracts are not zero hours as previously reported but a reduction of 55% down to £24k pa for cabin crew. A bit of a rubbish move by BA taking advantage during a crisis but on the other side of this 24k is also the salary for nurses, police, firefighters and is higher than most care home staff and ambulance drivers are paid so do we need to re-evaluate things a little here?

As they say in the Royal Navy - pick your branch, take your chance! Same with jobs. People apply for jobs knowing what the pay is. People applying to be a nurse can look at the NHS pay bands.

The pay for a nurse rises every year incrementally. Nurses also receive unsocial hours pay.

If employers couldn’t get the staff, the pay would rise.

DH earns 60k as a military officer. That doesn’t mean that a nurse should earn more.