BAA strike

peterbaker

Do any of you dissenters aged under 40 know what a promise is? (I am 50 and I am assuming that generally there were still numbers younger than me who did get taught right from wrong for a few years after I came through )

Do you realise that people are now broadly expected to work (and contribute) until they are 70, and that older people are generally wiser than you?

Do you realise that anyone who thinks a company pension scheme "needs propping up" until its members "fall off their perch" has obviously no proper concept of who the members of this pension scheme are or are likely to be, nor what they were promised, nor when they will ever start taking their pensions, nor how many are due to fall off their perch or when, nor how many are likely to have their funds forced into some depleted wind up/buy out arrangement by greedy manipulative unscrupulous corporate operators before they ever get near pension age?

And as for that so common and so puerile argument that if you don't like something you contracted into is taken apart before your very eyes, you don't make a fuss - no, you just walk away and find something better....That's just so typical of overconfident, irresponsible hoards of immature minds that don't belong to anything except their ego, and spout their stuff like they know it all.

Geez indeed...you just haven't got a clue until it has happened to you (pension promises distanced and ultimately ditched) ... and by the law of averages, unless we change things and make the corporate promisers keep their promises, it WILL happen to you! It won't sink these companies. They love it the way it is. They screw everyone who isn't a top executive. BTW I have already been and booked and paid extra to avoid one of the strike days to ensure I see my loved ones on time. Yes it is inconvenient, but there are more important things than blinkered ME ME ME!!

:santa2:

buglawton

Virgin coolly state on the phone that they are not cancelling any flights into the UK on the 14th Jan when BAA action was today announced for. If any MSE people here have experience of previous BAA strikes, coming home, what happens usually? Cancellation of flight or flight with no ability to retrieve luggage?

oh, and my pennyworth about the above discussion:
BAA probably know that if they cannot end the Final Salary scheme it will lead to the breakup of BAA as we now know know it, and also of BAA as a dubious UK monopolist.

Interesting that it is illegal for almost any company in the UK to a) Have a monopoly on an item of infrastructure and b) To collude with other organizations on pricing. Pity the Unions are not regulated by our Govt. in a similar way.

zerovampyr

I certainally don't think that people should have to go without a pension, I certainally think that people shouldn't always walk away, I also think that people should fight for what THEY belive in as everyone has a diffferent level of moral eptitude and ideals of their own. I do think people are well within their rights to strike if they so wish, and I do think that everyone should be entitled to that which is "fair" but sometimes it just isn't as simple as going on strike to achieve that looking at the current state of affairs accross the board. I personally, certainally do not claim to know EVERYTHING, nor do I posess all or any answers - I notice that the figures for the vote were only 838 more people voting yes to a strike than the no vote. For so many no votes there must be BAA workers who themselves, feel that this is a pointless battle to fight - or, not that this is specifically a pointless battle to fight, sure you should be as entitled to a pension as everybody else. But perhaps the timing of the strike action could have been a little more passanger friendly. I think that is a point many people are trying to make.

I wonder how many of the people who voted yes didn't have holiday plans and how many of the people who voted no, did.

No doubt the person who decided the dates is off on their holidays the day after action ends.

I kinda think stuff like this is unnecessary, money is a route of all evil. None of us seem to get a fair deal, the rich keep getting richer and people at BAA still get screwed.

I'm not in support or against the strike action - just to make that clear. There are ALWAYS two sides to every argument and im sure both sides feel that they are doing the right thing.

Again though, the timing of the strikes could have been a little less disruptive.

chesterfield

If the pension scheme stays as it is, then it would appear that the scheme could become unsound, requiring topping up, higher contributions or risk collapse.

If the pension scheme is closed to new entrants, the pot will still receive funding from nw members, they just wont have the same benefits come retirement age. Its not like money will stop going into the pot alltogether - at least this way there appears to be some hope of keeping the FS scheme in tact for existing members, although I will admit Im clearly not in possesion of all the figures.

I can understand people who are upset when something they have contracted in to is taken apart before their very eyes.

Though exactly what is being taken away from the existing members here? Anything?

Again, the strike seems to be in retaliation or objection to negative effects on the union members that havent yet happened, and may never do?

As for leaving a company because I didnt like the policies and actions of senior management, Ive been there and done that. Leaving behind a FS pension scheme in the process too.

zerovampyr

buglawton wrote: »

Virgin coolly state on the phone that they are not cancelling any flights into the UK on the 14th Jan when BAA action was today announced for. If any MSE people here have experience of previous BAA strikes, coming home, what happens usually? Cancellation of flight or flight with no ability to retrieve luggage?

This is a bloody good question. If i arrive back and cannot pick up my baggage i'll be royally !!!!!!ed. Usually if they are allowing flights into the country they must have someone to see in the plane and workers on teh ground. In which case, they would most likely allow you to retrieve your baggage as, if they don't, they are only making more work for themselves post strike.

zerovampyr

chesterfield wrote: »

Again, the strike seems to be in retaliation or objection to negative effects on the union members that havent yet happened, and may never do?

This is actually a point that most people are negating to realise. I wonder if sometimes people get a little carried away and vote for strike action as a panic reaction to misgiven informaiton or misunderstanding of the effects on their own situations. I don't know.

chesterfield

Perhaps its a preemptive strike, strike?

peterbaker

chesterfield wrote:

If the pension scheme is closed to new entrants, the pot will still receive funding from nw members, they just wont have the same benefits come retirement age.

Chesterfield I respectfully suggest you stop writing out of the back of your hat and desist from seriously misleading the audience here, and if you MUST keep commenting on things you obviously don't yet know enough about, go do some research so you do.


In all similar situations (and there are thousands of examples in the UK now), new joiners will not be allowed to join the Final Salary Pension Scheme PERIOD. There is no possible way that their funds for a new style of pension arrangement would be used to prop up the original members funds if they are not members of the same scheme with equal rights. That would be illegal. The only situation where one group of members legally is forced to "prop up" the funds of another group of members in the same scheme is when, prior to wind up, already retired members who are taking their pensions have priority over those who are not yet retired...


Therefore whatever the new starters are given as an alternative will not have anything whatsoever to do with the old scheme. The old scheme will then be denied all new contributions that would otherwise be paid in by and on behalf of the continual flow of new starters, and that is only one sorry step from being "frozen" for ALL contributions, and two sorry steps from "wind up".

Parisien

Strike....?!.....yeah...they got good enuf reason to do it...power to the worker.

So board, when Sven Goran Eriksson walked away with the remainder of his contracted years pay intact, worth many millions of pounds........he shuda given it all back?

No, it was a contract.......no difference for all those workers who when they joined the BAA FS scheme believed it was to honoured 30 yrs down the line.

BAA have every right to attempt to break the contract................BUT, only after reaching a settlement that meets the long term needs of their workers.

Support the right to strike!

chesterfield

So it is a preemptive strike strike then.

If I have this right, the strike is taking place to safeguard the FS pension scheme for existing members, that hasn't been touched, and that the company have advised will not be touched.

Why not strike because of the upcoming redundancies in May 2026 - of course the company will deny they are making redundancies in 2026, but you never know, they may do. I'd get a strike in now just to be sure.

EDIT - yes, my mistake on the contributions front, however if the scheme is left open for existing members, the contributions will continue from those existing members and from the company. Surely that will be enough to keep it going? If the contributions from existing members and the existing company contributions are not enough to sustain the outgoings from the scheme, and contributions from others are needed to suatain it, does this not just prove the following:

10 IF outgoings>income THEN goto 20
20 change scheme.

Parisien, can you tell those of us that have clearly missed this, what exactly is being changed in the existing members contracts/agreements?