Unite boss on British Airways cabin staff strike

[NickN]

British Airways last year lost a record $713 million, and was in even worse shape this year with a $519 million loss in the first six months.

It says its cabin crew earn twice as much as counterparts on rival Virgin Atlantic, and accused the union of a "cynical" disregard for passengers

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/tra...-1225810644318

Are BA staff really hard done by earning so much more than Virgin Atlantic staff in the same positions?

And over the Christmas break of all times, that's just plain nasty IMO.

[D Chan]

This is just yet another perfect example of how some people don't really know how lucky they are to get what they are paid. If BA goes bust those crew can try their luck with VS and guess how much money they'll get then.

Goes to show how difficult it is for legacy carriers to reduce their personnel costs. JAL, BA - that's 2 oneworld carriers almost crippled.

[Gerald A]

THE Christmas holiday plans of A MILLION Brits have been saved — after a High Court judge today BANNED the British Airways strike.
Mrs Justice Cox said a ballot of 13,500 BA cabin crew contained "serious and substantial irregularities".

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...d-invalid.html

[Owen H]

Stand by for another ballot!

It has been ruled invalid because the voting procedure they used was incorrect, not because of what they stood for.

I think it would be pretty naieve of BA to think that just because they got this ballot overturned that they don't have a serious problem that they need to negotiate.

I wonder when the next vote will be.

[NickN]

Union leaders — who made the mistake of balloting FORMER staff — said it was a "disgraceful day for democracy".

Am I the only one who thinks this is the funniest quote ever?

That's just like a government using deceased people to get votes!

Just goes to show the union is desperate to make a mountain from a mole hill.

I think the BA staff should swap places with the Virgin Atlantic staff for a month and see of they enjoy the reduced pay over at VA.

Same as with the Sydney bus drivers strike today, the government has a wage increase on the table and they still strike.

Blackmail is a crazy thing!

[Daniel F]

Its like unions have nothing else better to do than cause trouble just before Christmas... Qantas engineers, Australia Post, Sydney Buses, British Airways, Eurostar...

[Owen H]

Some of it is so they achieve maximum impact - The company is more likely to concede if they're faced with a large customer backlash.

On the flipside, sometimes companies make their hard push just before Christmas knowing the union is likely to be in "holiday" mode, and knowing that the union will be unpopular for taking action at Christmas, and they can just play to the media about that big, mean union disrupting everybodies plans.

Swings both ways.

[Ash W]

Originally Posted by David C

As understand it , BA are proposing a cut in cabin staff levels on flights . This is surely a safety issue and not a pay issue . Safety must not, and cannot be compromised at any cost , even if it means the airline and its employees suffer financially by industrial action .

In these situations , the employer always appears to be in the right , and the employee is often castigated by the general public .. In this particular case I firmly believe that the workers have a good argument , and if cabin staffing is to be cut they should stand firm .

You are of course assuming that they are already operating with the legal minimum level of cabin staff. But they are not, they are operating at a higher level, so any argument of passenger safety being decreased flies out the window. As far as I am concerned if an airline wants to reduce staff numbers and is still operating withing safety regulations then it is 100% an issue for management not the union.

[Owen H]

It is most definately a matter for the union.

They are there to protect their members interests and jobs. You reduce your cabin crew per flight by 20%, then thats 20% of your members being fired a few days before Christmas.

There are other issues too - one that has come up before is that they operate with a reduced crew, but expecting them to do the same cabin service, something that is usually not possible. There are safety issues surrounding that - and I can imagine the cries from the management when they refuse to do the inflight service because they don't have enough people to safely work the carts/galley.

How about aircraft pre-flight expectations? Reduce the numbers but expect the pre-boarding safety procedures to be done in the same time? Or will they pay the crew for the extra time they need to be working to get the aircraft away on time? I think you know the answer to that one.

I'm not saying that the aircraft can't be safely operated, in a minimum way, by the legal minimum of crew. But to say that the union shouldn't have a vested interest in the working conditions of its members is silly.

[Ash W]

I don't beleive there has been any talk what so ever of people being fired, just natural attrition and re-working of rosters. As for asking them to do the same service with the same staff, so what? Have you ever flown BA before? I do quite regularly both long and short haul, and beleive me on the short haul flights in particular there isn't all that much for the staff to do. So loosing 1 cabin crew member, provided they still conform with safety regulations is not a bad thing.

But seriously if staff at BA don't accept change then they won't have to worry about being made redundant, they will have to worry about how the pension funds and their entitlements will be payed when the airline goes under.

PS. One other thing I can tell you from living in the UK, that is the unions over here are always use, or more correctly threaten to use strikes as a first course of action, rather than a last course. In recent months there have been several high profile strikes (mainly postal) and talks of strikes on public transport.