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?

Ok just not doing the profitable ones sad to say that would be normal business practice tbh

call it what you want, Buzzybb, it would be unjust on all of us with a mortgage and a family. Teenagers who still live with their parents can do that tho and manage on a salary which resembles "pocket money".

Anyway, we're going around in circles. We'll never goin to agree, as the pilots' wives here seem to think cc earn too much and we should just shut up and be screwed over or their husband's years of training will be wasted in case the airline goes down because of our "whingeing".

I've explained my reasons for a strike, you've explained your reasons against the strike; we still disagree.

Ciao

ostg, please keep us updated though...

You have not won much support here, but I am genuinely interested in what happens to you in the aftermath.

I do admire you for your resiliace in this debate, even though I believe the strike action is wrong!

The thread moved way too fast for me to post, but am full of admiration for you Onestonetogo. Well done, and good luck

Well, according to that both myself and Buzzybb are working for peanuts/ "pocket money" and must be monkeys and yet we still manage to have a mortgage and do the jobs that we enjoy in careers that we want. You have stated this in your previous posts but it seems that you have then gone on to say how dreadful the job is and how much it cocks up your body and biological clock. So why do it? And if that is how you feel, why the hell strike about it - why not go elswhere and do something else?

Not only BA pilots' wives who disagree with cc striking I assure you! lots of other departments' wives disagree too.

what are the allowances for? you keep saying india and africa pay less than the far east. is that because expenses in india and africa are lower? i mean, are the allowances supposed to be what you use during you time in that country? if so then i don't see what the difference is if you fly to india or japan if it's to cover your expenses while you're there.

or do you mean you pocket the allowances, spend little while away, and use them to pay your mortgage? surely you should work out your mortgage affordability on your basic wage, not extras which can go down as well as up.

maybe i have it wrong. are you handed the allowance to save the paperwork of filing receipts?

The 30-40% paycut is a figure bandied about by BASSA to whip up support from cc for the strike. NewFleet has not been officially confirmed, no one has been recruited on to it, and it is illegal to strike over something which might happen in the future. In addition, BA offered cc a 'monthly payment', a flat rate to offset any shortfall in salary caused by loss of lucrative routes. Cc would actually have been better off some months with this payment. But Bassa rejected it. Because to accept it meant that they also had to accept the crewing reduction (1 less crew on every flight, meaning the CSD had to push a trolley).

Be in no doubt, this strike's legal premise (as stated by Unite) is entirely due to the crewing reduction, it has nothing to do with pay and everything to do with productivity.

You say-Our purser or CSD observes us troughout the trip and scores us on different aspects of our job. We also want to get as many "exceeds" as possible.-

It's not the same as crash simulations and saving hundreds of lives though is it?

Peter Burkhill is no longer flying with BA, he has left owing to viscous rumours he says were started by non other than Heathrow Cabin Crew. Another fine bit of behaviour from your team.

You wouldn't be in this position if nine months ago your union had taken the good deal offered.

I don't believe for one minute you have indicated you are striking to management, so nothing will happen to you.

You have a good job, you earn good money, and at the end of the day you are trying to shaft Gatwick crew and the rest of BA, so you can carry on having a lovely job with good money and fine hotels.

Just for the record, a long haul captain DH spoke to yesterday said the crew and volunteers he has flown with since the strikers went out have been lovely in comparison to half the crew that he normally flies with.

ostg so did your manager come back to you?

You seem to carry a whole lot of resentment to W Walsh - Pilots, the family of Pilots.... I kind of wonder where all the resentment will get you? It can't be healthy.

I do not think Unite have negotiated well. And given the heavy losses suffered by BA, plus this strike, then I would be looking at retraining for another profession or company, if I were you.

Also I think Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand are in a different league to BA, having flown all 3 I have to say that based on my own personal experience they are streets ahead in their provision of service. I would be interested in how you think both airlines pay better than BA?

It's a right mess. Sorry, but I really have no sympathy for the strikers and I think the union is misleading you all - from what I have read of their own press releases over the last few days. Facts appear to be fiction.

When you go back to work, it will all be business as usual. After this strike action, many companies will suffer for some months more, from loss of business - don't forget this threat of action has been hanging about since before Christmas 2009.

We are all suffering. As for saying "well the working arrangements don't suit me" let me tell you, there are jobs that I did in my 20's that are unsuitably paid, rubbish work hours etc no good when you have a family, that I wouldn't/couldn't go back to now. For god sake move on or get another job, like the rest of us in that position. If they want gap year students to do it, why not, they have no responsibilities and want an adventure. I would have jumped at the chance years ago myself.

When strikers look further than their own noses they will see that this disruption is hurting all businesses in the UK and abroad who rely on tourism. It's almost as if you want the airline to go bust and make others truely suffer. Lack of confidence in an airline is not just causing some mild annoyance for passengers when it happens, it's causing devastating effects on other peoples livelihoods, as it has been for months.

ok i read to the end of p11 but my eyes are now blurry and i need to go to bed!
just wanted to put my 2p worth in.
i have flights booked with BA for may half term, i have always flown BA, used to be gold member pre-kids. I am now anxious about my holiday and wish that i had gone with easyjet. i never thought i would say that. i have always been happy to pay the extra and fly BA, always. not any more.

when i left uni, i seriously considered becoming cc. the pay was FANTASTIC and the perks too, travel etc. however, the airline industry has changed. low cost airlines have taken over, flying is no longer glamorous, it is about getting from a to b. most businesses don't pay for business class anymore, it is a thing of the past.

maybe we don't need cabin crew who can mix kir royales or lay a table like you would get at the dorchester. maybe gap year students are good enough, who can be flexible. my sister used to work for PAN AM (remember them!) and always had tales about CSD who did NOTHING, the industry can't afford this anymore.

I think BA CC need to read the book "Who moved my cheese" and realise the industry has changed. time to move on. sad, but reality.

Who moved my cheese is a good read. I agree. Blury eyes here too. Must admit didn't read all if the 500 or so posts either, just wanted to rant / let off steam on a topic thread that encourages opinions.

I wouldn't express too much dissent-otherwise OSTG will accuse you of being a pashmina wearing tory voting private school mummy with a child with a silly name pilot's wife.

Dissent of OSTG leaves you open to insult on here, which is why she is getting such a hard time.

Doodelydoo you should have seen the poor bank morgage advisor we met I just ambushed him 'this is what is happening this what I am doing and this means you will be paid and I am not changing the car we are selling one so we only owe your bank £xxxxxx' I should have mentioned peanuts pay it would have tipped him over the edge poor man but I think he liked me as we always paid on time and cancelled our remorgage,
Amidawish who wrote 'Who moved my cheese' please I could not find it online

Buzzybb here is a link

Thanks Silver1 have ordered it I love new books

"Suddenly the company wants to take them away. Your union says "no, they cant, you must strike and they will give in". What is poor cc to do then? I doubt most of them even read the staff emails they get sent from BA, outlining the proposed changes. They blindly follow what their union tells them."

Well that's kind of their own fault then isnt it? If they're not bright enough to think for themselves or at least think "hmm, let me for one minute consider the motivations of my Union leaders " then they're getting paid too much anyway.

OSTG - so essentially one of the reasons you are striking is because you might loose income from the allowance paid on the more profitable routes

You are including your allowances as part of your basic wage? Well that's a bit optimistic isn't it? A frankly rather stupid.

A basic wage is just that, the wage you get paid for the job you are employed to do, anything over and above that is an extra and not what you should base your monthly expenditure on. If your income is not enough to cover your expenditure get another job, if you can

I'm quite looking forward to flying with new crew now, and I'm hoping that OSTG is not on my flight in May. How can someone who claims to be so caring and understanding to passengers post comments which are so rude and narrowminded

I don't need two hands to count the number of posters on this AIBU who support your strike, and the same goes for the RL, the rest of the public, other airlines, the government......

Bigredtomato OSTG's union had an offer that would equalise allowances across the board, leaving cabin crew better off some months, and shielding them from a drop in take home-but UNITE said "no"

ruddynorah the allowances are for living expenses whilst abroad. So Heathrow cabin crew get accommodation whilst away, and the allowance covers the cost of living (generously) for the trip.

There was recently and HMRC review of allowances at British Airways. The pilots who have more of their pay in basic and less in allowances were unscathed but the cabin crew allowance at Heathrow has left them open to tax on the allowances because the CC can't show that money is just for expenses down route.
So at Gatwick CC have a basic salary (less than Heathrow) and then have £2.4? per hour that they are working a trip.
Heathrow CC have a basic, plus the "allowance" for a trip.

Thanks for explaining Silver.

The reason I ask is that DH's job used to involve visiting customers all over the world and claiming these costs back as expenses.

Sometimes they would get a per diem amount, sometimes the exact cost of whatever they claimed. No-one ever thought of this money as part of their salary, it was just an amount paid for you to sleep and eat somewhere other than your home. Sometimes you could make money from the trip, other times just cover costs, and yes the tax man was heavily involved.

Feeling more and more sorry for the cabin crew now. Ihope that someone has the balls to stand up and see Unite for what it really is

Anyone seen the front page of Daily Mail today? Apparently UNITE are going to take over the Labour party as they have money and Labour havent. I wonder if cc were told their £15 a month was going to be spent on this?

Ah pinkycheesy they wont mind as ostg points out they hate the Tories.

Loved this from the DM Unites position on the removal of staff travel.

Unite's joint leader Tony Woodley told a rally of striking cabin crew workers on Monday that he believed the discounted travel arrangements were now 'custom and practice', not a perk.

Erm it is very clearly stated that ST is a perk and can be withdrawn at any time for anything. The precedent has been set and unsuccessfully challenged with some of the baggage handlers who went on strike. So I wonder in what way UNITE will challenge it?

Bigredtomato I think that's the one of the problems with the offer of a pay cut across the board. If you keep the allowances at Heathrow the pay cut is less of an issue for CC there.
Gatwick are paid less, and don't have the top up of allowances, but rather an hourly rate. To give them a pay cut penalises them far more than it does Heathrow, because Heathrow CC seem to consider allowances as being part of their take home pay but they wouldn't be cut.

our allowances make up our wages. They're not the same as someone who has a meeting abroad and then claims petrol expenses. They're part and parcel of our income. Our basic salary makes up about half of our income, allowances and long-range payments on top. So, we don't base our life on our basic saslary, the reason that our basic salary is so low is because there are allowances on top, depending on flight destination, flight length, time-zones crossed, duty day length, cost of life down-route, etc.
So, for example, on a 3 day trip to India, we get only £60. The time-difference is very small, plus buying food in India is relatively cheap (we tend not to buy food in market stalls as we try to avoid stomach bugs which would prevent us from flying back home), so we usually eat in the hotel as it's much safer, albeit a bit more expensive than in the street. However, to save money, most crew bring food from home (tinned tuna, sandwiches, fruit, cup noodles).

On a trip to Tokyo we get good money (5 day trip, £500): the time change is big, the flight is long range, the duty-day is very long, and the cost of buying food locally is astronomic, so our allowances are based on that.

If I'm in the US for a nightstop (3 day trip, worth less than £90 in total), I'll eat on the cheap (a sandwich from a corner shop is fine) so that I can save some of the allowances to pay the bills. Pilots of course have a massive basic salary and can afford restaurants for breakfast lunch and dinner, but we need to save that money for the bills.
Here's an example of a typical roster for a month (full time), with trips and what they're worth, so you get an idea:
day1 fly to New York
day2 fly to Heathrow
day3 arrive at Heathrow (trip worth £90)
day4 off
day5 off
day6 off
day7 fly to Abu Dhabi, 2 hours on the gound, then fly to Muscat
day8 fly back to Heathrow (trip worth £100)
day9 off
day10 off
day11 fly to Johannesburg
day12 arrive in joburg
day13 stay in Joburg
day14 fy to Heathrow
day15 arrive at Heathrow (trip worth £450)
day16 off
day17 off
day18 off
day19 fly to Mumbai
day20 fly back to Heathrow
day21 arrive at Heathrow (trip worth £60)
day22 off
day23 off
day24 fly to Entebbe
day25 arrive in Entebbe
day26 stay in Entebbe
day27 fly to Heathrow
day28 arrive at Heathrow (trip worth £150)
day29 off
day30 off

This is an average roster, it's not that great and it's not that crap IYKWIM.

Pinky, when each cc joins the Union they sign authorisation for part of their fee to go to the Labour party, they're aware of it! When I joined Unite I agreed to my money going to Labour (I'm also a member of the Labour party, tho not for much longer!). I will now be in touch with Unite to change that. Gordon ain't getting my money!
Btw I'm not surprised one bit to see that you're a Daily Mail reader.