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?

One comment on the Telegraph-and not a journalist's but someone else from your posse, does not make something true.
I expect WW has more important things to worry about than whether you like him or not.

There is no £500 payments-the non pilots are getting £60 on top of basic salary. Not £500- the rest day workers (DH was not) get their usual allowances (again not £500, and not the same level as CC allowances because pilots have lower allowances)

You really are full of drivel.

Your union pals tell you something and it must be true. Except it isn't.

The volunteers-the temps who are back and the new CC are the ones who are working because they care about the airline- not a bunch of people boogieing along to a mariachi band at a family fun day on the pickets.

As a British Airways pilot I can categorically state that no pilots have been paid any money other than their normal salary and allowances to act as cabin crew during the strike. In fact, many of them are worse off for it because they have been taken off their normal trips to be available to work as cabin crew, and have subsequently not been used due to larger than expected numbers of real cabin crew turning up for work. As allowances are only paid if you are on a trip, the pilots who have been sent home have not received any flying pay or allowance payments.

I am wondering what has coloured your opinion of Willy so much OSTG. From my perspective (and remember this is the perspective of a working mother who has been made to increase working hours and take a pay cut under the leadership of WW,) Willy is working hard to turn a profit in an increasingly difficult market. People expect to be able to fly to Spain for a pound, New York for £99, yet the price of oil is rising and the number of competitors is ever increasing. What we have above and beyond the Lo-cos is a level of professionalism, quality of service above and beyond anything they offer (and please remember that cabin crew are one of the major providers of this service, but not the only providers. Everyone who meets a passenger, from the lounge staff to the Skyflyers and wheelchair people, Terminal workers and coach drivers, as well as the pilots - yes, really! - are providers of that high quality service.) We offer an immense route network with excellent range of flights and levels of price and service, we have a Terminal of our own at Heathrow, an instantly recognised brand - this is still one of the best and most famous adverts of all time - I challenge anyone to watch it and tell me it does nothing for them!

And yet somehow this reputation is crumbling before our eyes. I can tell you, when people castigate BA these days they are not thinking of Willy Walsh. They see caterers standing on 'Hindu Hill,' and TV footage of piles of lost bags. They see - right at this very moment - cabin crew with stupid Hitler masks on shouting inane tosh like 'Willie Willie Willie out out out!' The cabin crew form a large part of our reputation. But what is being demonstrated at the moment is that Willy has the leadership credentials and the average BA worker has the pride in their company sufficient to carry 75% of our passengers to their destinations round the world at a time of their choosing WITHOUT the very people who claim the company is nothing without them.

I wholly support the right of anyone in this country to use a union to campaign to protect their working terms and conditions. But in my opinion these protests always go much better if they are carried out as a last resort after all other avenues have been explored, and then conducted with dignity. (I do not believe that Unite explored all avenues, and I do think that while there are informed cabin crew out there, there are also many who didn't actually fully understand what negotiations were taking place or what they were being asked to strike about. I know for a fact - having spoken to them - that there were many cabin crew who had been led to believe that a vote for a strike wouldn't actually mean a strike - it would just be 'sending BA a message.'

Back to the start of the post though - I wouldn't be bringing personal attacks into the debate, I wouldn't be entirely trusting the media, and I especially wouldn't be trying to make someone look bad to strengthen your argument. For every cabin crew member BA has who has gone beyond the call of duty when the moment needs it, I have come across a cabin crew member who frankly could do with sacking or retraining. Even with our wonderful people, our facilities and our reputation there are places we could vastly improve. We need all the help we can get as a company - and at this moment in time the cabin crew are not helping.

Just been sent this Absolutely brilliant! Just off to watch it again.

pandora9 well said! What a brilliantly written post that sums up exactly how we( the pilots' wives club) feel about this whole debacle. This is how all posts should be written - well thought out and without insult. I commend you and am glad my dh has such intelligent and eloquent colleagues as you.

I would really like to hear the opinions of the Cabin crew who took this trip with Willie Walsh to the hospital in Tanzania that works on the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV.
He went to see and support the work of "Change for Good".

It is an interesting interview, and it is a testament to the man that he is interested not just in the face of the charity of his airline, but also ensuring and seeing the real good that it does.
It also talks about the motivation for the decisions that he is taking just in case anyone might be interested.

onestop would you be surprised to hear that most members of the public think you are infact a greedy pig? I actually cant see how you can distinguish yourself from willie walsh in all this talk about ruining the airline.

If Hitler masks were worn - then that is going too far, far to far imo. But I really wonder if the CC on strike are in a bubble and have no idea as to how bad the PR has been for them.

I really do hope that the nasty comments that OSTG have made online do not spill into real life .... however I do suspect you do indeed allow your spite to spill over into real life.

You make no sense with regards to your allegations as to WW's affair - no sense whatsoever.

eatsushi - here and here

This also caused a bit of upset, understandably, among war veterans.

OSTG - move drivel and rubbish you are spouting, no £500 for my dh I assure you, once again he spent a happy w/e sorting out the crap some cc are creating at BA,deep joy.

Pity really, i could have bought a few pashminas with £500..

Pandora69

HEAR HEAR, good post

MABS How is DS.
£500 would have been lovely, but of course as we pilots wives are "all loaded" so we wouldn't have noticed

The Hitler mask, the comparisons to Holocaust survivors and Apartheid victims, the raising of the flag which upset the veterans are not only grotesque they also show that despite how much the cabin crew complain about their "difficult" lives they actually have no idea what real suffering is.

Thanks for posting silver and pandora - how shameful.

I think you've all missed the Myra Hindley pic at bottom left of this one from Pandora

(he not great Silver, ds back to hosp in am)

great post Pandora

MABS sorry to hear that- I was thinking of you this morning when we went to pick up DH and saw the volunteers helping passengers.

myra hindley, hitler, how low can you go?thats shocking. they are beyond contempt. shows how little respect they have for ANYONE let alone their customers.

I note onestone has gone quiet.

Everytime I see this thread I can't help but worry about how the A Team will cope without him.

I am not at liberty to reproduce the full message here, which was long and eloquently put, but I would like to post a snippet from a message on the flight crew forum. The message writer is a captain who has been in Terminal 5 over the last few days offering support to cabin crew who came into work and were terrified of being bullied by ther strikers. He praised the attitude of everyone who came into work, from the managers to the cabin and flight crew. Over the last couple of weeks, BA has been using a 'One Crew' policy, which in my mind should have been in place decades ago, where the flight crew lead the cabin crew and the whole crew stick together from check-in to the aircraft - none of this pilots and cabin crew report and brief separately, calling past the shops on your way to the aircraft, etc. One Crew.

Here is the snippet;
"A bridge has definitely been built between us and those crew who have worked."

So I am sorry, strikers. You are out in the cold. I am hopeful that the public has been behind BA's monumental effort to transport as many passengers as it possibly can, in spite of the actions of a minority of the cabin crew. The wedge that OSTG spoke of being driven between staff groups has actually been turned into a bridge that has brought them together to work more effectively than ever. When the strikers return to work they will find that their working environment is a frosty one of their own making.

We are very hopeful for a permanent improvement in the working relationship between pilots and cabin crew - an unforseen side effect of the Unite action!

Sorry Gibboninaribbon your comment has gone over my head.

Herhonesty What the photos do is show what sort of people/CC the majority of strikers are.
I mean why on Earth would you even make the comparison to either of those figures?

This strike is out of hand- and whilst people like jellyheadjulia and to be fair OSTG went in with a clear idea of what they wanted (even if it wasn't what the strike was called for-and therefore given the current tensions unlikely ever to be negotiated on) this has spiraled into something grotesque.

The pictures of WW has Hitler and as Myra Hindley- are disgusting.

WW marriage is speculated on in comments sections in the press and on here simply to besmirch him and try and cause him problems.

The volunteers are threatened (A pilot had a threat to harm his wife and kidnap his child because he volunteered.) as well as other instances including a text with pilots who had trained as CC names on and a not very nice message, and CC want these people who made the threats to come back as part of the "negotiated settlement"-really would you want to fly with them?

The volunteers are besmirched by UNITE telling everyone they are doing it for huge payments (simply not true) as MABS and I have maintained and Pandora has verified. They are volunteering, there are allowances if you are away (but nothing like the cabin crew get) £60 for office volunteers and the allowances pilots would have had for trips they were pulled off to work as Cabin Crew.
Remember a lot of pilots still earn less than CC-and the CC would get up to £800 for a trip. This way the company is limping by costing £7 million a day for strike action.

We the BA "wives knitting club" have been called names jeered at on here, and told we are only bitter against the cabin crew because our husbands sleep with them down route-again none of it true-all we did was put forward another perspective of people in the company who do not support the strike.

The proposed solutions offered by UNITE penalise the crew at Gatwick and London City who work to the cost saving measures, so that CSDs at Heathrow can remain in their current non-service role which costs the company money.
The proposals put forward by BA protected pay and allowances, protected CC from One Fleet and in the beginning even offered a share save scheme, UNITE never even took these offers to their members.
UNITE wanted this strike- and have whipped their members up into a frenzy.
With all due respect to OSTG she was writing much more sensible and pleasant to read posts before she went on the picket lines and listened to their propaganda.

actually gibbon that was quite funny!

DH has just had a text from BA ops- apparently overall 79% of cabin crew reported for duty/work over the strike period. That means only 21% of CC were on strike.
Looks like most CC are more sensible than some of their colleagues on here make them seem

good news, good to hear Silver, dh with me today at hosp instead of volunteering, just told him that.

MABS Glad to bring you some cheering news.

By all accounts the atmosphere at T5 is more positive than it normally is, and the CC coming into work at Heathrow are very enthusiastic. Makes you wonder

All of my dh's outbound crew broke the strike and all but 2 turned up on the return sector. His friend's Beijing had 8 out and 10 back and by all accounts the crew coming to work are doing a fab job. There are far more crew breaking the strike than UNITE would ever want the public to know.

maybe OSTG has broken the strike, maybe she is working and that is why we have not heard from her ...