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?

I have many friends who are crew, i understand the situation all too well i assure you.

No, my dh couldn't afford a month unpaid, he had no choice at his grade, had to do it.

I wouldn't worry about a 30/40% pay cut if I were you, it will be 100% if and when BA go bust.

As many have said on this thread, people are not booking BA as they are worried the flights will operate or not, I totally agree with them. No passengers equal no airline eventually i'm afraid It's very simple.

I don't have a vested interest, being neither a BA customer nor crew, but I did have a very interesting email from Unite (I work in the NHS so am a Unite member).

I feel very strongly that Unite are stirring up trouble instead of trying to resolve the issues at hand. I don't think they are at all effective despite their size - they managed to 'negotiate' my staff group an increase in working hours and an effective pay cut (nothing like the one the BA crew face tho'.)

Basically, I had this big long email from Unite, which was all a bit 'Please Miss, Billy said I hit him and I didn't, not even nearly Miss, well only a little bit maybe but he did poke me in the eye with his pencil first'....you get the picture?

It was as if they were getting a bit desperate so were trying to convince their members that they were being effective. Which in fact, made me feel as if everything I'd read about them in the press were true despite the intention obviously being the opposite.

MABS, so you're telling me that I should accept a 30 to 40% pay cut (I now take home between £800 and £900 a month, I'm part time), when I can hardly get to the end of the months as it is? That I should just bend over and let the management screw me and my colleagues? If BA go burst, it'll be because of the idiots that are running it, not the crew who work hard day after day despite how we are being treated.
If we don't do anything, there will be no job fighting for in less than a year from now, so I'd rather fight now than never.

I wish all of those sitting in comfy chairs at Waterside would get a taste of what we're going through at the moment. They might be more understanding.
Do you even know that any crew who says "picket-line" gets suspended? Crew are saying "Piccadilly Line" instead. How sad.

as long as you realise that there is a high chance of you not having a job in, with 60/70/80/100% of your salary , then that's ok.

I just put the fone down from a crew mate of mine who is worried sick about operating a flight on Saturday, crossing picket/picadilly lines, possibly being abused and shouted at by colleagues and having to have BA 'bouncers ' for protection, and this is a man!

How very sad for him, but he is determined he will work and not strike, he wants to keep his job and try to help BA survive.

Anyway, i'm off now as ds has op tmro, sadly his father won't be around to support him post surgery at the w/e as he has to help at the terminal due to the strike.

what I would like to know is howe much the big wigs of unite earn... and why they felt the need to give so much to the labour party.

Surely those milions would be better spent on the members of the union.

YANBU - I think the BA staff are taking the piss. I book a huge amount of travel for my company and know that this strike action is doing imeasurable damage to the BA brand. I have no sympathy for the BA staff and will personally no longer travel with BA. I hope you manage to get away with your DH!

I for one am glad that your talk of pickets is being censured, because of the bullying that is already taking place of those workers (and that is what they are)and volunteers who are going to be busy busy busy this weekend doing your job, and helping people navigate the chaos that you will be causing.
I am sad that people are no longer booking with BA because of some of the cabin crew, because members of staff like my husband who took a permanent pay cut, works longer hours than his predecessors and competitors (bar Ryan Air) this weekend will be doing their utmost to ensure this airline's survival and passengers needs being met.
So yes I will be sleeping easier when he heads off in the early hours to do this, knowing people wont be allowed to bully and intimidate him because he is looking to protect the rights and salaries of thousands of employees, whilst you protest that the CSD might have to do a bit of service.

MABS, your mate should be scared of what BA will do to all of us, not of what his colleagues might say to him. If your mate is a member of the union, then he should respect the democratic vote that we took. The vast majority voted in favour of strike action, he should respect that.
If he's going to work just to safeguard his own ass out of fear, then I'd say he's a coward. I'd be very ashamed of myself if I went to work during strike.
If/when, in a year's time, we'll be workin with no fixed roster, only doing the least paid flights (India, Africa), while the new, cheaper crew will do the better paid flights for us, we'll find ourselves taking home £1,000 on full time, he'll have no right to complain. People like him , luckily, are a very small minority.

Silver1, you are clueless about why we're striking. Go back and re-read this thread if you have time.

ONESTONETOGO-I beg to differ, I have followed this thread, and the political machinations going on at BA, and I would have to say perhaps you are the one who is clueless.

I too have read this whole thread and am ex eurofleet crew married to a pilot. I think that many informed, intelligent and usually sensible people in the CC community have been fired up by militant bullies placing pressure and fear of the unknown all for their own end game that being to remain a militant backward thinking ill-informed and ignorant Trade Union. I know of 1 longhaul crew member who said that she would not vote for a strike but then read the inflammatory propoganda otherwise known as a BASSA newsletter and changed her mind!! You cannot vote to strike over a "what if" and if you do vote for a strike be prepared to face the consequences because WW will recoup the cost of the strike from you all......that's if there's still a company to work for. I fully support the cabin crew volunteers and fully condemn the strikers. oh, and for the ones who are going to go sick, you are the worst of the lot.

If you knew why we're striking, you wouldn't say it was because "the CSD might do a bit of service"

As for the "political machinations going on at BA"- again, you probably like conspiracy theories. All that's happening at BA is that our incompetent management are sucking the airline dry (Willie Walsh takes home £70,000 a month, 5 times as much as Barack Obama), alienating our customers and employees, creating a culture of fear, bullying cabin crew, and ruinin what used to be a british institution of which I was very poud to be part of. We're trying to save our airline from Willie Walsh. He's a megalomaniac on the loose. He's already done damage to us in the form of £ 45,000,000 because of his T5 cockup. Yet you're crucifying us cabin crew for wanting to defend out jobs, in which we've invested years of hard work and dedication. I despair!
You've obviously made your mind up, and are not willing to find out the truth.

Munchkinsmumof2, from my experience at BA (12 years), I can honestly say that Bassa have always got it spot-on, never lied to us, and always anticipated the managemen't next move. The managers, however, have been a bunch of lying, devious, cheating cunts. Hence, I believe a letter from Bassa, and know from experience that any message from Willie or Bill Francis is a pack of lies, half-truths, spin, deceit.

Onestonetogo, I read your reasons for striking, they range from the silly to the illegal.
I know the agreement BA put forward 9 months ago, I know the agreement Unite promised to take to you in return for an extension on calling a strike. Your union lied, and the offers have been getting worse and worse, and for them you are striking.
Nine months ago BA were offering to not even have newfleet on the table, all the "might happens" of new fleet have come about because your union wont negotiate.
Nine months ago you were being offered a share save scheme.
Now if you are lucky you will come out of the strike without staff travel, and having screwed your entire team with a pay and conditions cut.

You are not striking because of WW. You are striking because you have to work 1 down! You cannot strike over a "potential" threat to your T&C's in the future. You have no support either from within your own company nor the travelling public. I know for a fact that you are well paid for what you do and understand you want to protect that but in doing so you, as a community, are jeopardising an entire airline and thousands of employees' livelihoods in the process. You will not beat WW and are naive to think you can. You will only damage the airline further if these strikes go ahead and for those that go on strike get used to being surrounded by a group of angry and frustrated people as there will be plenty in the dole queue when BA goes under

OP- YANBU, imo.

BA cabin crew arepaid on average twice what Virgin cabin crew are paid. BA lost 400 million GBP in one year- this isn't a sustainable business model. They obviously need to make cuts, and yes, pay cuts are part of that. How else can they compete when their competitors are able to pay their staff so much less? BA is stuck with an old pay scale, from the days when that was the average pay for that job. Newer airlines are not hamstrung by this old model. You can see the same thing happening with car companies- older companies like GM are stuck paying high wages while newer upstarts can get away with much cheaper labour costs.

I'm not saying I agree with the particulars, especially the scheduling difficulties. However, I am saying the union will have to make some concessions, if they want everyone to continue to have jobs in the future. You can force the company to pay high wages only for so long. They can't continue to lose hundreds of millions of pounds a year indefinitely.

I was cc for 7 years and I didn't read an accurate, intelligent, informed, useful, truthful, unspun, non militant or generally sensible BASSA newsletter EVER. I didn't vote to strike then and wouldn't now, I wonder which one of us is right?? If you asked the rest of the airline community and travelling public who is painting a more accurate picture of the situation OSTG I'd put the money on me.

cakewench- here comes another clueless person with an opinion on how much we earn and should earn! The figures you see for Virgin crew wages, DO NOT include their allowances (which they receive cash, on top of their basic salary). The figures for BA crew include all allowances, and have been inflated by WW's spin machine.
Not that it's any of your business, but here is how much we earn:

• a CSD (cabin service director) who flies full time, if been in the company for more than 25 years will take home 28,000 a year.

• a juniour crew member, on full time, on long haul, will take home between £1,600 to a max of £2,000 (on a very good month with trips that are worth money, such as the far east).

• a crew member on part-time (flying one month ful time, one month off), takes home around £900 per month.

The new changes, which Willie Walsh wiull introduce soon, mean that new, cheaper crew (18 year olds on a gap year) will be recruited to fly for peanuts and do the trips which pay us better money, while we're left with the flights which trigger very little money (India, Africa). This will mean that our wages will be reduced by 30 to 40%. Do you think that's fair?
On top of that, BA will make it impossible to do this job for anyone who's got children, as we might check in to operate a 3-day trip and be told that we'll be doing 1 6-day trip instead, at no notice (try and imagine organising childcare, etc).

We'll also have fewer days off each month (trust me, when you get back from a trip you do need at least a couple of days to recover), which will not only be unhealthy but affect our family life in a big way.

Anyway, it's very tyring to repeat the same stuff again and again, read the whole thread and you'll find out more about the strike.

Btw, like I said before, I wouldn't dream of telling someone that they should just lie back and be exploited by their employer, that they shouldn't strike, that they deserve to be jobless. I'm disgusted at the attitude that some people on here have, without knowing what's really happening.

Munchkins, I don't know if you were at BA around the time when the infamous Operation Columbus memo leaked? That was a prime example of our management plotting against the cabin crew, behind our backs. Again, our unions were bang-on right about it. Like they always have been in my experience.

OSTG Your official reason for striking-the only reason you can negotiate around is being one crew member down-that would be the non active member of crew down. BA are not even negotiating that, they will not entertain your other concerns at this stage. If your union have said they will they are lying to you.

I would be terrified in your position, in 24 hours if you are on strike you will have lost everything you have worked for, and I do not believe it is worth it for any of you.

Unite have betrayed you-BASSA have lied to you and go out and find the union rep I mentioned earlier who wont be going on strike because her CSD course starts Monday. They have all betrayed you, I hope you come to see they are not worth going on strike for.

And OSTG the company have offered to equalise the allowances to effectively an hourly rate and standardise across the board to prevent the scenarios with Gap Year students that seem to worry you so much, they have consistently done that for 9 months and your union have consistently said-NO.

OSTG, when you say take home pay, do you mean after tax? So for the junior crew member it is 1600 to 2000 in their pocket each month?

Also, when you do a long trip away, for example above you mention 3 day trips and 6 day trips, do you work all of those 6 days? Or do you work whilst on the flights and have say 4 days off in the middle?

It does seem a bit harsh that they can you from a 3 day to a 6 day period of time away with no notice, that would be hard on anyone without children, let alone with.

I am currently on the fence but wanting to take a side

For the PT cc who had posted and others on here - how is it fair that my retired parents have gone on a holiday (at non peak time!!!!) and needed to return for a hospital appointment, BA flight cancelled thanks to YOUR strike and to get back for this long awaited hospital appointment my parents have had to pay TWO months of your salary to get back. So yes, customers will vote just like you are and unfortunately for you it will be to other airlines which will mean you won't have your salary, and frankly (hypothetically) as an employer at another airline I would avoid like the plague employing ba cc to work for me as there would be a risk of them causing trouble at my airline. Therefore those who didn't vote to strike but whose jobs are lost will also suffer. These maybe "what if's" but then that is what you are striking on. Well done. Sadly what I can see will happen is that the Union members will bully those who passed the picket line and frankly SHAME ON YOU.

1600 to 2000 take home is around what a full time nurse or midwife makes, including any unsociable hours pay.

To me that amount seems a lot for a junior member of cabin crew.

I agree that the above changes to staff seem unreasonable, but it's NOT the fault of the passengers, and a strike is not the answer. After all, if BA had no customers, then there would be no staff there.
My long-awaited holiday (for which I've sacrificed many meals out and treats in order to save) is with BA, which means it's proving stressful, we've rebooked dates and are keeping our fingers crossed there will be no problems. But it is a disgraceful attitude from their union and it doesn't endear me to travel again with the national carrier. I want people whom I can trust. I am pregnant, I don't want one meal and reduced service in a long haul flight! And I don't need the extra stress.

whostolemyname, it's after tax. I work 1 month full time, one month off, and take home between £800 and £900.

As for the trips, it depends on flight frequency to that particular destination. If you go to New York, for example, as there are flights every day, you only stay there less than 24 hours. A 6 day trip could be: day one, fly to Atlanta. Day two, fly back to Heathrow. Day three, land at Heathrow in the morning, get 18 hours at home. Day 4, fly to Boston. Day 5, leave Boston, arrive back at Heathrow on day 6. Usually knackered but happy to see the DC!After this trip, we get 3 days off to recover. There are also trips where we fly somewhere and stay there, for example Mexico city, which we get very rarely (I only ever did it once!).

Geekoftheweek, we work unsociable hours too, in case you didn't know! And it depends what you think a junior crew is. I'm a junior crew, despite having been in the company for over 12 years, and being qualified to work in First class.