about the forthcoming BA strike?

[iwastooearlytobeayummymummy]

DS (11)is supposed to be going on a much anticipated school trip next week, but both outward and return dates are strike days.
I can't begin to tell you how much he has been looking forward to this trip.

DD3 (13 )is also away, at the same time, on a choir trip, but flying with another operator.

Excited at the prospect of 2 children away,and happy to leave DD2 ( 18) home alone, DH and I have booked a much needed break ourselves, first time away without the children in 5 years.

Now everything is 'up in the air', no pun intended .

Can somebeody please explain why cabin crew are so aggreived? I've had a look at BBC's overview of the reasons behind the strike, but don't really get it.I also work for an organisation ( local authority actually) that has announced a 2 year pay freeze, recruitment freeze and forthcoming redundancies. Apart from free tea bags and instant coffee I get no other priveliges.

IABU to think they've got nothing to strike over?

wannabe - I appreciate what you are saying, we are all rude about our customers to our colleagues I am sure (if you are in a customer facing role), why we are all a bit narked about it is that if you want someone to support you, voicing this opinion during this discussion is not really the best forum. We are those customers!

No doubt it is a little condescending to clap at the pilots ability bearing in mind he is paid to land you safely but perhaps that should be on a "AIBU to think its naff to clap at the pilot" thread .

OSTG wrote " But applause on landing is, well, naff. "

No, not always its not.

I was in the air on a longhaul flight on September 11th, with BA, and the pilot was absolutely fantastic.

There were a lot of very distressed Americans on board and he was the kindest, calmest , reassuring voice over the intercom.

I still remember the round of applause when we landed, and it certainly wasnt just relief that was being expressed, people were immensely grateful for his demeanor.

I didnt think much of your "simpletons" comment about passengers.

mabs - sorry, my second line was meant to be more generic. Should have left 2 lines between the first and second point.

no worry at all Nighbynight, thanks for clarification

Isnt clapping as the plane lands analogous to saying thank you as you get off a bus?
I think it is rather sweet, actually. Have never seen it, but would probably join in!

I'm not sure I would view it as condescending to be honest, more appreciative. Looking down on your customers is never a nice trait, yes when working in customer serving roles I'm sure we've all 'had a laugh' at various things that happen; but looking down on your clients (being condescending towards them perhaps?) in public really isn't the done thing, especially when looking for support.

wannabe, so what do you suggest we do, fly to LA and fly straight back? Where do you suggest we stay?
I do like some of the hotels where we stay (Cape Town is an example, hotels in India are beautiful too, although to me it doesn't make sense to stay ina beautiful hotel in Bombay and then see peope starve in the streets or have no toilets while we have a arge bathroom!), but some are very unpleasant. Johannesburg, for example, is a vile hotel and I defy anyone to not want to slash their wrists after 2 nights there.
Other hotels are ok, perfectly adeguate for a night's sleep (hotels in the US, for example). Other beautiful hotels are in Saudi Arabia, but quite frankly who cares about a nice hotel when as a woman there you have no human rights? Btw men get seaview, women get car-park view. Men can go to the gym, beach, anywhere; women have to ring a restaurant and find out if they accept women (usually in a separate room), etc.Most likely we stay in our rooms, better not take a chance with sharia law.
The hotels where we stay in Africa are 5 star, although the 5-star standard over there is comparable to Travelodge here (understandaby so), and you often get bed bugs and cockroaches in your room.
The hotel in New York has very tiny rooms where you can't stop the air-flow above your bed, but who cares, I'm very grateful to be in New York even if it's for 18 hours!

Yes, I am lucky for doing a job I like, doesn't mean I should passively accept to be enslaved by my employer. In any job, there's always someone worse paid than you- does it mean that we should all aspire to lower wages? When did people really think it's ok to work your arse off to make ends meet for less than the minimum wage?
I've taken 1 month unpaid leave (then had to borrow money from my sister to buy food!), and come to think of it it was a stupid move. One month without my salary to me meant not making it until my next wage. To Willie Walsh (who famously renounced one months' salary last summer, which is £70,000), it was just a matter of "surviving" another 4 weeks before his next £70,000 .

Anyway, thanks all for listening. Goodnight

OSTG your comments about Africa and accomodation are completely out of order and condescending - you started generalising about Pilots please do not go there about Africa - complete and utter rubbish that they are comparable to Travelodge here and understandably so... very patronising.

OP, YANBU.

I absolutely abhore strike action under all circumstances.

We live in a country where there are decent minimum levels of wages and conditions. If you don't like the additional ones given to you by your employer, or, if you find that they're being taken away to (shock horror) save the company, then go and work somewhere else, and be grateful that there's the opportunity to do that. Unlike in many parts of the world you a) have the choice and b) don't have to send your kids out to work to make ends meet.

I find it incredible that strikers state that they're having to "take a stand" against "abusive management" who would otherwise "take the piss". As far as I can see, work and have a job or don't work and get the sack. If you don't like your company's management style, go work somewhere else, but remember, they're the management. Clue's in the name. They're there to manage the company. If that means you need to be (shock, horror), managed, then that's how it is. If this management means that the only way to save the company is for staff to reduce their takings from the company (which all the other BA staff have realised they need to do) then that's how it is.

I feel desperately sorry for the OP and her son. How sad for them both.

OSTG I do not accept that you are passively enslaved by your employer - you have a British passport you live in the UK - please get real.

I am sorry to respond directly to your posts but I simply can not make head nor tail of your arguments - you leave yourself open for ridicule - you surely earn more than the minimum wage - if you can survive by working one month on, one month off....

.

I also totally agree with pink.

"hotels in India are beautiful too, although to me it doesn't make sense to stay ina beautiful hotel in Bombay and then see peope starve in the streets or have no toilets while we have a arge bathroom!"

And yet the irony of this is totally missed on the OP. Can I believe that all her clothing she buys for herself is fairtrade because she's seen the real tragedy of life in developing countries? No. Having seen life on the other side does she realise what being short of money/poverty actually is? Apparently not.

What, exactly, does "passively enslaved" mean, anyway?

Enslaved is enslaved. To be "passively enslaved" is not only an oxymoron, it's a highly offensive phrase and a very distressing one given the nature of slavery now and in the past.

onestonetogo- i have trawled through this thread in an effort to understand what this strike is about.

one question for you- how does delivering a baby work when you are not insured to hold a passenger's baby?

and thanks for your description of kir royale, cheese knowledge, and the amaaaazing table settings. that really had me chuckling. you are a very clever waitress..who can deliver a baby.

well done.

Yes - so hard up that she does her own pedicure but then ofcourse she can spend £8 on a full body waxing when she is in India - mind you I am sure she is very concerned about the labour cost that her Indian therapist receives?

ruddynorah - being the poster with the baby no one would hold, have had a good old chuckle at the vision you have put across - me giving birth to dc2 on a ba flight (flying ba just in case I go into labour.....) and cc helping me out only to throw baby in the air at dh saying "can't possibly hold a dc in the air, am not insured..."

I just couldn't face reading through all the posts on this thread, but just wanted to add my support to the BA strikers. It is just me, or is there a lot of rightwing, thatcherite MNers about? Up the revolution.

and all the baby goings on could happen on route where the cabin crew think they are still going to land in Bombay rather than Mumbai

soupmaker I think a great deal of people could understand the mining strikes because their very real income and way of life and community was under threat - but I think that the general public is not supportive of these strikes.

ruddy, apparently one serves "kyr royale". Yes, petty maybe, but given that she also berates people for clapping their pilot and clarifying what's in a screwdriver (shock horror, someone in a service industry has a slightly patronising customer), not to mention being apparently in slavery despite earning IRO £1600+ NET pay per month pro rata, and finding it acceptable to take advantage of cheap labour in furrin countries, I'm irritated enough to be just a little bit personal and petty. Cue everyone picking up my own miztiping .

soupmaker it's nothing to do with being right-wing (a term which is erroneously bandied about on MN as some kind of offensive term or term of abuse). It's about realising that the way that an economy works is by people - um - working, and by holding their company to ransom, they're just causing themselves and everyone else a whole load of damage. That doesn't make people Thatcherite or True Blue. Many people against the strikes may also be Labour voters. They're against the strikes, not against or for a political party.

Companies don't have the right to "just sack" someone. Yet employees have the right to simply step away from their jobs. I hardly think that the rights of the employee are being eroded in this country.

Well said givecarrots a chance!.

Personnally, if someone called me a right wing thatcherite, I'd take it as a compliment!

Well said givecarrotsachance, regardless of the politics of someone this strike is only going to damage those striking not really the UNITE leaders who are causing all this issue. It just so happens that they donate a great deal to the labour party but it doesn't mean the labour voters are in favour of cc striking.

Actually dooley I think the interesting point is that DESPITE how much Unite donate, the Government had actually come out to say that the strikes are bad, unconstructive and should be called off.

Does that make them Thatcherite?

Although prob some pure "lefties" (term used deliberately to contrast soup as opposed to it being one I am happy to use) would say NL is as Tory as they come

For the record and for what it's worth, living in an area where the effect of the mines closing is all too evident, I'm extremely saddened by what happened there.

I would never had supported the mining strikes (although I was too young to at the time anyway ) but the effect of the mines closing has been devastating, and NO party since then, of whatever colour, has really resolved that.

Fortunately things are now improving but 10-15 years after most closures. Terribly sad.

The mines needed to close if they were unprofitable - and striking only meant that they were impossible to run at a profit. Once trade relations with other imported coal sources are set up, it was too dangerous, given the British union mentality, to go back to UK supplies.

But what should have been done at the time was for a decent policy to have been put into place to support those who lost their jobs. If I blame Mrs T for anything, it's for not doing that.

So I'm certainly not Thatcherite. I support an awful lot of what she did - and find a lot of the other things she did appalling. That's usually the way though, no? While I don't like this Government at the moment, I certainly feel they've done a lot of good.

Unfortunately for the miners, many of them were so institutionalised by the unions that they became impossible to employ. And obviously not all of them, but a good number - certainly those still out of work 10 years later when I moved to this area and started to employ them out of a mis-placed sense of wanting to help, and found myself with a bunch of blokes who were just absolutely unemployable. Very sad.

I see the same thing with BA CC. They have had it so good for so long, they can't see the wood for the trees. Thank goodness that the rest of the BA staff can who have already accepted the company's terms reductions in order to save their jobs - and let's hope that's enough to save the company.

www.unitetheunion.org/news__events/latest_news/unite_spells_out_the_reasons_w.aspx

IMO the unite web page is very weak - there are some quotes like " We are in Britain - not Burma" blah blah blah.

All of which does seem to point to CC having as carrot says having had it so good for so long.

From what I can tell this strike has backfired massively on those who have taken part in it. Unite would not be appealing to the board of BA if this action had worked.

By the way isn't stewardesses an old fashioned term? The term Stewardess is used on the Union website - I took to be incredibly out of touch however I'd be interested if any cabin crew still consider themselves stewards or stewardesses?