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?

scanty, I can "only" go by the way I treat my passengers, which is what I would like to be treated like when travelling on BA.

Since you mention First class or economy pax, let me tell you that, despite the huge difference in terms of product that we deliver, I treat economy pax and first pax in the same, respectful, pleasant manner and so do my colleagues.

I'm sure that the intense pressure and low morale at work may contribute to some cc to not go the extra mile when it comes to customer service, and it will get worse if Willie has his way.

Willie get your claws off our airline!

But don't you think you are treating your passengers pretty poorly when you are striking rather than serving them?

Also the WW face masks looked pretty stupid.

I wish the CC on strike would get over the fact that you do not get to choose the CEO of BA and stop their insulting and bullying personal attacks.

I support the rights of workers to strike, however I am a nurse and I know that if I or any of my colleagues had booked a flight with BA during our holidays and it was cancelled we probably wouldn't book with them again.
I knew when i became a nurse what the pay and conditions would be like and also knew that morally, i wouldn't be able to strike as it would breach my code of conduct and potentially lead to loss of life. I imagine it is quite difficult to make the decision to strike when public opinion and that of other people within your own company are so opposed to industrial action.

DH was doing the strikers job yesterday (on top of his own)
He said of the team there were 4 regular cabin crew and 4 volunteers.
Three of the CC thought the strike was stupid-one wasn't striking because she realised how much it would cost her bet her comrades are pleased.
Anyway DH said the others were lovely to the passengers, but the pro striker spent the whole flight bitching and moaning about passengers. Sounds like we know which sort of CC are on strike then

OSTG your attacks on Willie Walsh sound very childish-and your talk about our airline-well I would just say it is very much the airline of the workers and the volunteers rather than those partying on the picket line hoping for Boom for themselves and or Bust for the airline.

Good post Scanty yet these are the CC that we keep being told make the airline what it is-and that is what customers want.

Silver1, so far I've answered your malicious grilling, but after reading your post I realised there's no reasoning with you. Good luck to your DH, I bet he liked the £500 bribe to be a strike-breaker. I for one can hold my head up high, both for the way I conduct myself towards my colleagues and my passengers. I would never break somebody's else strike, it's deeply immoral, but hey, we obviously have very different ideas as to what's acceptable and what's not.

For your and your DH's info, the cc who was on the flight was a scab, not a pro-strike c. If she had been in favour of the strike, she would have not flown. Luckily cc like her are a minority, as are strike-breakers such as your DH.

From now on I will happily answer any GENUINE posts/questions, not comment on any ill-informed, bitter, silly comments (such as Silver's) as there's no point, as her post above has proved.

To my fellow cc, see you at Bedfont, those scabin-crew buses will get a cheer and a wave from us.

onestonetogo - why are vilifying Willie Walsh?

You would not like such treatment dolled out to you - so why do you really hate someone so much - when you do not even know him?

eatsushi- willie is destroying my airline. He got away with murder: he got involved in price-fixing (illegal), which cost BA THREE HUNDRED MILLION POUNDS, then caused the T5 fiasco, FIFTY MILLION POUNDS, and now alienating the workforce and putting us cc against the ground staff and each other. There have been staff sacked for much lesser crimes than those, yet he refuses to stand up and be counted for his mistakes!
He behaves like a power-trhirsty megalomaniac whose ego is certainly bigger than his brains.
He has shown time and time again to have nothing but spite for cabin crew (something that other cc have aslo found in the past!) and acts as a dictator rather than a leader.
(He's also lost his wife and children for having an affair with a BA middle-manager).

He wants us, the workforce, to pay financially for his mistakes, while he takes home £70,000 a month.

Btw you can hate someone even if you do not/ have never met them personally. Their actions speak very loud. I have never met George Bush, but I can pretty much bet my house on the fact that he's just as stupid in person as he came across in his policies and speeches.

eatsushi, if I treated my workforce like he's treating us, then I wouldn't be surprised if my employees pictured me as a blood-sucking-vampire or a greedy pig, they'd have a point!

OSTG There was no £500 payment-and my husband is not immoral-sending 10,000 jobs down the toilet because you are greedy and lazy, that is immoral.

Also not sure what drivel your union has fed you, or what grade you got in maths, but if more than 52% of Heathrow cabin crew are working-98% at Gatwick and 100% at London city it makes your 48% the minority.,

I am not the one that descended into personal attacks, drivel about pashminas and started the whole thing of no one taking you seriously when you suggested you were entitled to your salary by because you'd done advanced first aid, could mix a Kir Royale and set a table-well bully for you, some of us can do that stuff anyway.

You have ranted raved jeered and sneered on here-and you haven't actually been on strike yet have you?

ok so you do not like him - especially nasty to say he has lost his wife and children for having an affair.

OSTG Your comment is actually libelous, Willie Walsh is married with one daughter aged 11 (so conceived before he even came over to England to work at BA) utter drivel and tosh yet again from you.
You are obsessed with affairs
Apparently my husband is sleeping around
Pinkycheesy's DH is shagging CC
and now Willie Walsh is at it
Hmm how did you manage to mess up your relationship?

Married one daughter
business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3642742.e ce

Married one daughter
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7529327/Willie-Walsh-BA-wont-exist-in-10-years-if-we- dont-transform.html

Married one daughter
topics.wsj.com/person/W/willie-walsh/649

Married
executive-willie-walsh-forgot- to-tell-wife-about-pay-cut.aspx

Sorry daughter 14 not eleven.

sorry can you post the links?

I stand corected, he has, like you say, 1 daughter, not two children. But he has had an affair with a BA manager ( his assistant, who used to be cabin crew many years ago). His wife has dumped him for this. She has also turned up at Waterside recently and made a big scene, this from someone who works at Waterside and told me all about the big scene. Poor woman I would've done the same!

Btw my hatred of this man is based on his actions within BA. The fact that he cheated on his wife is a separate issue, btw, not one of the reasons why I hate him!

Really because we have a friend who is quite senior at Waterside who says something else.
Everything he says-and I have read suggests WW still lives with his wife and child which means your statement was incorrect.
You type stuff out and assume it's true because you wrote it down.

try googling "willie walsh affair secretary wife waterside", exactly what my mate told me! I love the internet sometimes

Anyway, Silver, goodbye.

Nah - I don't think a google search proves anything and anyhow why would you care?

I can not help and wonder whether BA will look through this thread onestonetogo and consider your comments, possibly identify you and then subject you to disciplinary action.

If I were you I would consider carefully what you write.

eatsushi, that wouldn't surprise me one bit if they did! (oh and excuse me but my friend at Waterside telling me about Mrs Walsh turning up and then finding it on the internet, well, it can't be a coincidence. Of course I wasn't present when Mr Walsh shagged his secretary, therefore I can't prove it. And anyway, I know it to be true, and,like I said, it's not one of the reasons for my dislike of Willie-no-mates.

Doesn't matter if he did or didn't sleep with half the office-everything you wrote about it was inaccurate. As someone else said just because it's on the internet doesn't make it true.
Even if his wife thought he had cheated on her it doesn't make it true.

My point is that's how your posts go
All pilots sleep with hosties so their wives are against the strike
My husband got £500 for volunteering-he didn't
Pilots wives wear pashminas-lots don't
Pilots are loaded-a lot earn less than cabin crew.
Most cabin crew are on strike-they aren't
You deserve your pay-hmm most would say you don't.
My list goes on and on.
There is a theme- you write it down so you think it's true, you check nothing, not even what your union tells you.

I still would like to know how it's okay for BASSA reps to threaten to kill a volunteer's wife and kidnap his child (this is well documented at BA before you go off on one-and the pilots wives will most likely know who I mean) but you still think they are the people you want to stand behind, and you want these people reinstated as part of your terms to go back to work.

Onestonetogo, I think your employment relationship has fundamentally broken down - you are so bitter, that I personally would not like to fly with you as I would not have any confidence that you provide me with an adequate or safe service if I was a BA customer. It worries me to think how many other CC out there share your anger.

You are trying to sling mud at Willie Walsh and fyi, the google search did not work.

If your allegation of your CEO having an affair is not one the reasons for you hating your CEO then why are you repeating it on this public forum?

OSTG I believe I have already pointed out that you should treat others as you would wish to be treated. You have been at pains to point out to other posters that what you read about cabin crew in the media is sometimes untrue and sometimes an exaggeration. Why should this not apply to others too?

OSTG - still sticking her fingers in her ears and going la la la la la la la la la la ?

Just out of curiosity, and regardless of the rights and wrongs, of those cabin crew who are striking do you believe 100% that your strike will work?

Pandora:

• I do treat others as I wish to be treated, if you read my posts I say it time and time again. Some posters seem to believe that they have reasons to think I wouldn't treat my pax or colleagues nicely. Wrong! I can honestly say that I'm a very caring, polite, cheerful and approachable cc.

• Indeed a lot of stuff read in the media is wrong. If you're referring to the Willie-cheating on his wife thing, the reason why I know it for certain to be true is not based on what papers have reported (they haven't), but on what I have been told by more than one person. Someone who works at Waterside also told me about Mrs Walsh turning up at Waterside and making a big scene after having found out about her husband's affair. I've also found the same anectdote being told by someone who works at BA as a comment to a Telegraph article. Google "williw walsh affair secretary wife waterside", you can't miss it.

• really I don't care where Willie sticks his willie! The "only" reason why I hope he drops dead or drowns in the fountain outside Waterside is because of the damage he has done to our airline and because us, the workers, are made to pay for his mistakes.

• If I was an employer and treated my employees like he's treating us, then I wouldn't be surprised if my employees went on strike and depicted me as a greedy pig.

• all strike-breakers (except cc) have been paid £500 for volunteering as strike-breakers. This applies to any check-in staff or pilots or office workers who have offered to work as cc during the strike, even if they won't get used to fly.