BAA strike

andytran

I have sympathy for the BAA workers, as they deserve the right to take action in order to protect their entitlements.

However,
I work in London and live North of Aberdeen, through no choice of my own. (my company gave me no choice, although I am leaving them in 6 months time).
In order to see my wife and kids, I fly up/down between London and Aberdeen every weekend.
In the past two years that I have had to undertake this journey, Ive had to put up with the following:

1. Flights cancelled due to terror alert in London.:mad:
2. Flights cancelled due to terror alert in Glasgow.:mad:
3. Flight cancelled due to an aircraft taking off and having an engine failure,therefore closing one of heathrows runways.:mad:
4. Flight cancelled due to BA cabin crew strike.:mad:
5. Flights cancelled due to fog at Heathrow.:mad:
6. Flights cancelled due to strong winds at Heathrow.:mad:
7. Flight cancelled due to Aircrew not being able to get to the airport as a major accident closed the M25.:mad:
8. Unable to get to airport due to tube strike.:mad:
9. Unable to get to airport due to bus strike.:mad:
10. Oh, finally, once I couldnt make my flight as my car broke down on the way to the parking area.....at least that one was my fault!:rudolf:

and now it looks like flights cancelled due to BAA staff strike. This country is rapidly going downhill....we are being forced off the roads and forced to use public transport...great, its sooooo reliable.

OK rant over, Ive just got to figure out how to tell my kids that I wont be getting home in the middle of January once again because of another problem that is out of my hands....:T

vermont100

chesterfield wrote: »

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?

chesterfield i take my hat off to you for apologising ...sturll could learn alot from you. in answer to your question the main thing that is being changed is that new employees will no longer join the scheme . in effect our scheme will no longer get funded from new employees. hence as people retire and claim their pension you may have a short fall in the scheme. people might have missed this on an earlier post but the baa pension is i the top 3 pensions in the country. if you go to any financial expert they will tell you the same. main reason has been a well run pension scheme that is showing only a 1.4%deficit of its total value.
so why change something thats running very well? baa recently enjoyed a pension holidayof 7 years. this means they didnt pay a single penny into the scheme ........ it must be in poor shape if they can get away with that !

vermont100

andytran wrote: »

I have sympathy for the BAA workers, as they deserve the right to take action in order to protect their entitlements.

However,
I work in London and live North of Aberdeen, through no choice of my own. (my company gave me no choice, although I am leaving them in 6 months time).
In order to see my wife and kids, I fly up/down between London and Aberdeen every weekend.
In the past two years that I have had to undertake this journey, Ive had to put up with the following:

1. Flights cancelled due to terror alert in London.:mad:
2. Flights cancelled due to terror alert in Glasgow.:mad:
3. Flight cancelled due to an aircraft taking off and having an engine failure,therefore closing one of heathrows runways.:mad:
4. Flight cancelled due to BA cabin crew strike.:mad:
5. Flights cancelled due to fog at Heathrow.:mad:
6. Flights cancelled due to strong winds at Heathrow.:mad:
7. Flight cancelled due to Aircrew not being able to get to the airport as a major accident closed the M25.:mad:
8. Unable to get to airport due to bus strike.:mad:
9. Unable to get to airport due to bus strike.:mad:
10. Oh, finally, once I couldnt make my flight as my car broke down on the way to the parking area.....at least that one was my fault!:rudolf:

and now it looks like flights cancelled due to BAA staff strike. This country is severley going downhill....we are being forced off the roads and forced to use public transport...great, its sooooo reliable.

OK rant over, Ive just got to figure out how to tell my kids that I wont be getting home in the middle of January once again because of another problem that is out of my hands....:T

i understand your frustrations and can tell you that i know staff that will be effected by this strike who didnt know when the dates would be. my feeling is this will be settled before those dates. management and unions will sit down and discuss this , which certainly didnt happen when they suddenly announced they were closing the scheme. just one more thing if our fs scheme wasnt in any danger then why have they felt the need to offer first a 6 yr and then a 10yr dispensation from touching our scheme
in the future. this is self admittance that somewhere down the road they would have tried to close it.

vermont100

swanseajack61 wrote: »

I am in the same boat, flying out to Orlando on the 29th Dec and due to fly back on the 18th Jan with Virgin. With this planned action coinciding with Virgins I can’t see us getting back on the 18th Jan. Not to bothered to be honest can’t think of a better place to be stuck than Orlando. Hope these dates don’t disrupt too many people. Also to Volmort the complete idiot hope you have a !!!! Christmas you complete and utter muppett.

the names vermont100 not volmort , but well done for getting some of the letters right. regards to your lazy mate that you know at gatwick who voted to get time off at xmas. didnt work out for him seeing as the dates are after xmas. all these ficticious people you know you must be so popular......... suggest you have a party with sturll and pete and ur lazy mate from gatwick lol

vermont100

would just like to thank everyone that has showed support even if they are themselves being put in a difficult position as regards travelling. im as positive that this will be resolved before strike dates as i was that we would get a strike mandate in the first place. all we are looking for is maintaining our current pension rites. not to much to ask when the government are constantly banging on about saving for old age and making sure you dont take to much from a state pension.

vermont100

chesterfield wrote: »

And who pays for the new members when they retire and live for longer after retiremement? Who pays for the existing people drawing their pension now? Answer - you do.

Ill spell it out for you. People are living longer after retirement, this means they draw their pension for longer, this means they take more money out of the pot than previously.

This is why the schemes are dissappearing. They are not viable for a long future.

Again, the Union leaders have certainly earnt their corn here. They have managed to get members to swallow their speel, and follow them like lemmings. I would wager that the vast majority of people taking part in any industrial action will have absolutely no understanding of why they are taking part in the first place. If pressed they may be able to repeat parrot fashion whatever lines they have been fed by the union puppeteers.

The majority will not have sat down looked at the arguments put forward from both sides and come to a reasoned decision on whether to strike or not, they will simply have read the blurbs put out from the corporation, which will have been full of financial reasoning and a comprehensive picture. This will have been follwed very shortly by an announcement to the members from the union, probably written using words and sentences one level up from cave drawings, encouraging the majority of missing links that follow them to believe every ridiculous word.

There is further reading on final salary schemes here:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/help-and-advice/advice-banks/article.html?in_advicepage_id=125&in_article_id=395462&in_page_id=90

The situation is simple. If you and others force BAA to keep the final salary scheme in place, it is an almost certainty that it will require topping up. Where exactly will that top up come from? Profits? Im sure the shareholders will swallow that. Or is it more likely that money will come from other internal savings? This will see redundancy, wage rise freezes, bonus stoppages, and a whole raft of other measures which will contribute to a much less enjoable working atmosphere for those who remain.

That will have the knock on effect of making the roles within BAA look less attractive than a role in another company - which will reduce the number of people taking employment with BAA for advertised roles. Which guess what, reduces the contributions going into the pension pot. Creating a lovely vicious circle of cost saving exercises within the company again.

Take a look at the bigger picture, and try dragging yourself kicking and screaming out of the 80s, and you may realise what is at stake here. If you can drag another luddite along with you at the same time, all the better.

chesterfield are you aware what the term luddite means ? it means someone opposed to technilogical progress or change. how is that related to baa changing my pension schemes. for your info the modern airport could not get much more technology in its doors if it tried. perhaps you over heard someone use this phrase and thought it sounded good

sturll

vermont100 wrote: »

sturll lets run through your main points from this latest post of yours.
arrogant and selfish you said ....... well if you think looking out for other fellow workers who may only have been in a pension for a few years and safeguarding their families and future as that then i think thats a strange assumption. iam personally ina position of having got 24 yrs pension already with another 10 guaranteed could quite easily say i alright jack. but we are not all like you sturll. £6 an hour well you need to times that .......... no im not telling you why should i divulge that info to you. needless to say when your a highly trained person in a position of great responsibility you normally get the gong rate.
didnt quite get the boyfriend thing but then didnt get the baggage handler thing either. as lesley said your good at puerile remarks and nothing else. you have no credability on this forum and have become a laughing stock trying to be the first to break the news.
your actually just a douche bag.......... look that one up . its probably a compliment for you.

Im sorry, i just cannot take you seriously. Perhaps i have underestimated you. Or maybe it is the fact that you earn a load of money yet have poor grammar skills, limited intelligence and even worse reasoning skills.

You are really that thick that you would strike over something that has absolutely no effect over you. That to me is not intelligence it is the sound of a sheep, thou shalt follow him.

But i personally think you are just bitter as i have already said. No doubt you will reply to this tomorrow, your 'leccy' is probably on emergency by now.

Lets just see how slick you are when im bathing on a beach in the Florida Keys and you are stood on a picket line wondering if this really was a good idea.

Mug.

sturll

vermont100 wrote: »

would just like to thank everyone that has showed support even if they are themselves being put in a difficult position as regards travelling. im as positive that this will be resolved before strike dates as i was that we would get a strike mandate in the first place. all we are looking for is maintaining our current pension rites. not to much to ask when the government are constantly banging on about saving for old age and making sure you dont take to much from a state pension.

You cannot even spell what you are trying to protect - What you are striking over!

What a bloody fool you really are.

Its Pension Rights.

sturll

vermont100 wrote: »

CONDITIONS ......... DOUCHE BAG

Well done.

A typo.

Clutching Straws a little.

Still, The Keys is better than Skegness eh. Can i suggest you go through this forum, on the HYS on the BBC and any other readily available impartial discussion on the subject of you striking. You will be perhaps surprised to see that the vast vast majority of people are anything but in support of you.

Besides, do you think its a coincidence that your dates for a strike avoided Christmas?

sturll

vermont100 wrote: »

COINCIDENTAL DOUCHE BAG

Ha ha, your immaturity astounds me. There is a huge difference between a typo and consistent poor grammar.

:rotfl: