MSE News: BAA workers vote to strike, which could shut six UK airports

richardw

bagand96 wrote: »

Trouble is, they have a majority of those who voted.

Yes, and it is just as daft as say only 5 out of 6185 staff voting and 3 out of 5 voting for strike action.

John_Pierpoint

Ah well I suppose all these holiday makers not going on holiday and the dodgy travel companies for whom this will be the last straw, will introduce some realism into next year's holiday plans.

That should put a bit towards reducing the UK's massive balance of payments deficit and its carbon footprint.

Meanwhile the workers for this Spanish owned company will be juggling extra wages for most with redundancy for some.

Who is running Gatwick these days?

bagand96

Yes, and it is just as daft as say only 5 out of 6185 staff voting and 3 out of 5 voting for strike action.

I agree, its daft, pathetic even, that such a massive amount of people couldn't take two minutes to put a tick in a box and stick the bit of paper back in an envelope. It never fails to amaze me.

BernardM

Do you know how we used to ballot.?
If you were a worker you voted. If not you didn't. Simple as that, just like in a general election.So they stopped it and changed it to a secret postal vote.

When a ballot starts if people leave between and the day of voting they are entitled to a vote and any that join and starts work are not entitled to a vote. How daft is that.

Lady_S

I have just checked the wording on Columbus insurance and it states

In the event of your outward or return journey to or from your country of residence being delayed for more
than 12 hours beyond the intended departure time (as specified on your travel ticket) as a result of:

3. strike, industrial action or security alert (provided that when this policy was issued or the trip was booked,
whichever was later, no such action had already been declared and therefore there was no reasonable
expectation that this would affect your trip);

This sounds to me like it isn't covered?

BernardM

richardw wrote: »

Yes, and it is just as daft as say only 5 out of 6185 staff voting and 3 out of 5 voting for strike action.

Ballots do not matter anyway, not if a man in a night dress and a wig can deem it illegal.

It has nothing to with ballots. Their intention is to destroy the UNITE union in British Airways. They have said as much, publicly. They don't want any power whatsoever, they don't want any representation except management.

BernardM

You never here anybody argue that the management should ballot about their proposals to sack people or to close down an industry

dankosheemo

spiro wrote: »

I cant see them moving flights to Gatwick especially if its over the bank holiday which is one of the very busy weekends. There is also all the logistical issues.

I'm due to fly with Ryanair from Stansted so will try and move to a Luton flight as soon as any strike is announced. Problem is that in the past Ryanair appear not to allow you to change the booking until the flight is actually cancelled which might not be until the day of travel.

Thanks spiro - I think I'm just hoping for a 'nice' alternative in the event of and not having to rebook for a later date or cancel the whole thing. I'm flying with Virgin and know they fly from Gatwick too. Hoping Mr. Branson has a good strategy plan in place!

Hope it all works out for you too. I guess we will know more later today!!

I read somewhere (skynews.com I think) that it's partly down to shift pay being removed if the employee is off sick. But isn't that normal in most companies?? Our chaps only ever got flat rate if they were off sick - no shift allowance. I guess we shall see what happens later today hey...

Hope it gets resolved and we all get to have our holidays as we had originally booked! :beer:

Danko xx

4Chickens

Hi all

I'm off the US on 10 Sept from Heathrow and I am tentatively drawing up alternative plans. So far, assuming American Airlines could re-route, I would have to fly from Luton to Dublin and then Dublin to Chicago.

However, I have a couple of questions/thoughts.

I know that the Union have to give one weeks' notice of their intended strike days but is there a limit to how many days they can strike?

Could they call more than one strike at a time, i.e. Sat 28 Aug, Sun 29 Aug & Mon 30 and then 3 days the following weekend. Because if they could I would pity the poor devils caught in the middle days.

Any thoughts

spiro

cindiedunkley wrote: »

I know that the Union have to give one weeks' notice of their intended strike days but is there a limit to how many days they can strike?

Could they call more than one strike at a time, i.e. Sat 28 Aug, Sun 29 Aug & Mon 30 and then 3 days the following weekend. Because if they could I would pity the poor devils caught in the middle days.

Any thoughts

Something like that is what they did during the BA strike to cause maximum disruption.