'Who do you support in the BA strike?' poll discussion

Maxes_Party_Planner

Grahamty

It may have escaped your notice but BA have had to make cost savings across the board, in all areas, in all regional offices (where support for Willie Walsh is as strong as ever!) What makes Heathrow cabin crew so special that they should be immune from cost-cutting? (Your support was much appreciated by the way!)

As for biased media coverage, do me a favour! You say UNITE haven’t put their case across effectively, you can say that again but that’s down to union incompetence not the way in which the dispute is being reported.

UNITE bosses are the biggest hypocrites around when they shout about BA macho management; they’ve been nothing but confrontational and antagonistic since before Christmas! All I’ve seen this weekend is one of the UNITE bosses shouting, ranting and raving and then resorting to personal insults (how professional) and then he says he’s not after a war?

Face it, UNITE have had their bluff called by BA. Finding themselves with little public support, in an act of sheer desperation (and to court more publicity) they then employ the shameful tactic of appealing to U.S. and other foreign Trade Unions for secondary action.

Think back a minute before the strike dates were set; to when the BA offer was made. The UNITE spokesman said although they wouldn’t be recommending it to their members, they would never the less put it to them as if it was some form of noble gesture. Then of course by deliberately setting the dates, this offer was immediately withdrawn and quite right too if the pre-condition stood about not setting strike dates and I know who I believe on that one!

All we’ve heard ever since from UNITE is tantamount to begging for an offer, the original recommendation for which was to reject it, to be put back on the table. Who's fault is that? (Yet more incompetency)

One thing that really annoyed me over the weekend, were the reports of BA management bullying staff, in particular in relation to the threat of withdrawing concessional travel. This possibility was known before the Christmas strike fiasco (a UNISON rep colleague of mine could not believe UNITES’s sheer incompetence over that one!) Since when is the withdrawal of a ‘perk’ bullying?

Then there were the reports of ‘petty’ disciplinary action against staff slagging off BA on the internet. What do you expect BA or any other company in the same position to do? Again hardly bullying and they deserve all they get for being so stupid. (I refer you to the one-sided journalism supposedly 'against' striking BA crew.)

I’m not BA staff but I have a lot of friends who are and they are not happy with UNITE to the point they are considering leaving the union (many were former members of AMICUS and the T&G.) They feel UNITE, by continuing with this action for what is, let’s face it, a minority of workers, are being grossly negligent towards the majority of their members who let's not forget, have already agreed to cost savings in their own areas and are now also having to deal with the customer backlash and pick up the pieces.

Anyone in the Newcastle office have a spare Willie Walsh T-Shirt?

happyrichard

Although no direct questions raised of me, I think it best to respond.

I appreciate that living in London is a great expense. I moved from the North to London after doing my own degree and Masters. I moved down to a fairly low paid job and realised that I needed to earn more to have a life down here. So, I changed career. I changed into one that I knew would support my lifestyle and therefore I don't grumble. With a good degree and good level of education and some real spirit, I have brought myself to the point where I live in London and don't grumble about the prices.

I appreciate that some people choose to work in industries that don't always pay the best, but that is a choice. I feel that you just have to get on with it, or do what I did and change. I am not wanting an argument, I just feel that is the case.

With regard to the economic climate, I appreciate that airlines get tied in with price of oil in advance and that one of the few variables in the short term are salary costs. To increase them now would be a painful exercise that would only lead to more people feeling the pain. I could well be wrong, but that is again the way I see it.

I wish the BA employees all the best, but I feel that the company needs to move forward and striking is not in my opinion a way of achieving it.

moggylover

globalds wrote: »

the first bit of independent data i have seen of the strike action.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5175b7da-35ea-11df-aa43-00144feabdc0,s01=1.html

i don't know if i am whole heartedly behind this strike as these aren't low paid food packers ,these are well rewarded and well qualified ,and could probably find alternative work if they don't like the new set up at ba.

The thing is a can't abide willi walsh .
He personifies all the traits of aggressive bullying management that have missed so many opportunities through the years because they simply can't see a situation where they would compromise to reach a result or see that winning a battle can often be detrimental to the war effort.
He is the bumbling first world war general who would order his troops to run the enemy guns for no advantage and then send the same command out the next day.
To win a strike by breaking the moral of your front line workers is surely a counter productive move.
I don't think any one would see the cabin crew of ba as some militant subversives trying to seize control from the management ..
...but i think the cabin crew feel this was maybe a point to draw a line ..and if that is the case then i would have to respect that .

I haven't chosen to vote as i am not keen on the wording of the choices

:t:t:t:t:t:t:t:t:t:t:t I do wish someone would fix my clapping smiley:(

Excellent post Globalds and I think you sum up the Willie Walshes of the management World perfectly.

GOOD management never, ever needs to get into confrontation! They will have the man skills to present the problem to staff, and the fairness of spirit that will allow them to hear the other side.

meher

Background

BA cabin crew offered changes to pay and working practices that would have made savings of more than £100 million for British Airways, but the company rejected these proposals and repeatedly walked away from talks while introducing provocative changes.

These, not so clever cabin crew, are in denial and the union leaders totally insightless. Them combined seem to have little clue as to how self-defeating such strike actions are. They have foolishly put themselves in a weak bargaining position because BA and the Union had settled that they wouldn't announce the strike dates but the union couldn't even manage to keep up with that and it is devious they deliberately do it as such announcement amounts to huge loss for the company. Why should BA entertain such bodies and their members that has no iota of integrity in them. I genuinely dislike any union actions that seek benefits for it's members at the expense of crippling business'. When the crew members end up in tears, I hope the bunch, the union [STRIKE]thick[/STRIKE]bigwigs would be booted out of office.

FlyGuy_2

As ever, when these big unions are involved, they invariably have a union agenda, and not a pro-company agenda. They're big business themselves, and never seem to have clicked the adage that the better the employer does, the better the employees would do to. It's a simple fact, that Unite is not looking out for the best interests of the crew of British Airways. What's even more regrettable is that so many crew can't see that for all the emotive garbage that's being thrown around. The crew need to take a calm, but long and hard look at what is actually going on.

I've seen the last offer BA put on the table, it was miles better that what Unite put out. There in itself is part of the problem for Unite...they didn't come up with it. It also didn't involve a pay cut for LGW crew (already on the reduced numbers for a few years now) so that LHR crews could get the extra crewmember back so the Senior Crew Member (CSD) could return to their original work level. Did I mention that it appears that most of the Unite reps are also CSD's? Funny, that.

Oh and one other thing...why have most of these reps gone sick over the strike?

Renya

The main thing that steers me towards supporting the management and not the strikers is that they're striking around the Easter period, when they know they're going to be busy and cost the company a lot of money, would I be correct in thinking they were also going to strike at Christmas last year? I think that striking around periods when they know there's going to be a rush of people isn't really fair. But that's just my opinion

teddyco

The problem is not that salaries are too low, it's the cost of living that's too high here in the UK. That's the problem!

Tax, food, petrol, energy, and housing costs are all too high!

minerva_windsong

relaxtwotribes wrote: »

The world has moved on since then; hence the rise of low-cost carriers. Customers want to pay the lowest price and are prepared to do without frills to get that. And in a recession, BA's premium product is very adversely affected due to it's business model being a very high operating margin. Lower pax numbers leads to much lower operating profit.

This is a battle that management simply has to win and Walsh will see to it. Once this battle is won, watch sweeping changes follow in its wake - that's where the real prize lies for BA.

Isn't the solution to that, then, that BA becomes a long haul specialist and scraps short haul flights?

Bobl

Most waiters get minimum wage, so why should cabin crew get any more, after all they are just waiters. The industry has blown up these jobs to make flying seem special, but in these modern times it is just the same as taking the train.

I choose to fly Virgin when I can, the service is great and the staff are fantastic.

If they are not careful BA cabin crew will all end up working in hotels for the NMW after they bring a great airline down - but don't worry, the union bosses will still earn more than most people and will move on to destroy another business.

wildthing01

d'you know, i did actually vote on this poll (although i'm not saying which way), on instinct, until i thought about it and realised that a) i don't know enough about it to be able to form a true opinion either way, and b) these things are rarely straightforward enough to be able to make a simple binary decision.

having worked for both 'sides', as both a union rep and a manager, i've been given some insight into the way large organisations work (and have been truly surprised by some of it!!), and it's a very complex act to satisfactorily balance the needs of the organisation with the needs of the individual workers. this country has become obsessed with numerical targets, with little thought for the impact of this on quality and this has lead to a certain lack of creativity in managing costs - e.g. companies making qualified, trained and experienced staff redundant to resolve the problems of the recession, meaning that when we come out of the recession and they need qualified, trained and experienced staff, they won't have any!!

there are managers that are out of touch with what it's like to be on the ground (or in this case, in the sky!) delivering the service/product, and only see costs/profits/their own targets/bonuses etc but equally there are staff that only see their own little bit of the job and don't see the bigger picture or understand how the bigger picture affects them.

often in these situations, what you end up with is a compromise that no-one is truly happy with, but everyone has to accept.