BAA strike

vermont100

poppyolivia wrote: »

EXACTLY!!!!

My sister phoned Air France because shes leaving a day after us (14th) and shes flying to charles de gualle, the guy said not to cancel as it will work out and they will pay for any hotels other flights etc and the last thing she should do is cancel. The bloke also said it happens all the time and they laugh about it as people phone all the time panicking and they are so organised he wonders what the fuss is about???? I think he said this in away that made my sister feel ALOT better...not a 'know it all' way! She came of the phone feeling brilliant!
All these twits that come on here saying oh the customer is selfish....how in the name of God do you break it to a 2 year old and a 7 year old that we aren't going to see Minnie Mouse anymore cause they are worried about their pension...get a grip folks the customers save all year round for their holiday and if it wasn't for us customers you wouldn't have a job...so get of your lazy !!!!!! and do your jobs!!!!!!
By the way people with kids and pregnant people get priority...so the chap said!

Good luck with your wedding and hope you will have a great time xxxx[/quote

most of us do not actually say the customer is selfish although judging by the last couple of posts i might have to review that. so you dont give a damn about my pension. fine thats your opinion but the fact is everyone gets upset about different things, your upset about missing your annual holiday im upset about my pension . try reading all the facts about this dispute before you start spouting off about getting off your lazy !!!!!!. must say once again , this will not go to strike action baa will not let all 7 airports close down and id imagine the government might have something to say about it as well. all it needs is baa to say it guarantees the scheme to stay the same or that existing members will be safeguarded on their present scheme. shouldnt be to hard for a company turning in 550 million profit last year

Arandorastar

vermont100 wrote: »

..... must say once again , this will not go to strike action baa will not let all 7 airports close down and id imagine the government might have something to say about it as well. all it needs is baa to say it guarantees the scheme to stay the same or that existing members will be safeguarded on their present scheme. shouldnt be to hard for a company turning in 550 million profit last year

So where is the compromise from the employees?
And don't hold your breath about the Govt. stepping in - on your side! It's got enough on it's hands with the ACTUAL threat to Police pay without getting involved in the POSSIBLE effect on existing BAA employee pensions.
Would the strikes have even benn considered, I wonder, if BAA were just stopping FPS arrangements for new eployees (as many employers have done to many employees already!)
Is the point of principle so great to strike for?
For strikes to be effective, they should gain public support. I've not seen or heard much for this one. Where is all the PR from the Union telling the public just how employees' actual rights are being threatened - now, not possibly in 6 or 10 years! Has BAA served notice of Change of Contract on all existing staff?
It's the thin end of the wedge if strikes take place in case something is going to happen. I can't even remember that happening in the bad old days of Thatcherism!

poppyolivia

vermont100 wrote: »

poppyolivia wrote: »

EXACTLY!!!!

My sister phoned Air France because shes leaving a day after us (14th) and shes flying to charles de gualle, the guy said not to cancel as it will work out and they will pay for any hotels other flights etc and the last thing she should do is cancel. The bloke also said it happens all the time and they laugh about it as people phone all the time panicking and they are so organised he wonders what the fuss is about???? I think he said this in away that made my sister feel ALOT better...not a 'know it all' way! She came of the phone feeling brilliant!
All these twits that come on here saying oh the customer is selfish....how in the name of God do you break it to a 2 year old and a 7 year old that we aren't going to see Minnie Mouse anymore cause they are worried about their pension...get a grip folks the customers save all year round for their holiday and if it wasn't for us customers you wouldn't have a job...so get of your lazy !!!!!! and do your jobs!!!!!!
By the way people with kids and pregnant people get priority...so the chap said!

Good luck with your wedding and hope you will have a great time xxxx[/quote

most of us do not actually say the customer is selfish although judging by the last couple of posts i might have to review that. so you dont give a damn about my pension. fine thats your opinion but the fact is everyone gets upset about different things, your upset about missing your annual holiday im upset about my pension . try reading all the facts about this dispute before you start spouting off about getting off your lazy !!!!!!. must say once again , this will not go to strike action baa will not let all 7 airports close down and id imagine the government might have something to say about it as well. all it needs is baa to say it guarantees the scheme to stay the same or that existing members will be safeguarded on their present scheme. shouldnt be to hard for a company turning in 550 million profit last year

I have read alll the thread...took awhile and I still stand by what I said! cheers for bothering to write though!!:D

stphnstevey

When Is The Strike????????????????????????????????

Arandorastar

Promises_my_foot wrote: »

Since there seems to be an abundance of authority on pension plans perhaps some direction from a dissimilar standpoint would benefit others! There is obviously a lot of opinion out there, it would be interesting to discover what alternative behaviour would have been favoured and perhaps those in a final salary plan would benefit from such a rejoinder.

Theoretical situation:

Working on a contract basis with different clients a self-employed individual is the owner of his own fortune. Being shrewd he puts a percentage of his profits into in a personal pension fund. If each contract runs a successful term he retires in the knowledge that he has made ample provisions, life is good; his financial planning worked well. However, consider this scenario; Assuming his service is of good standard and through no fault of his own his contractual agreements are compromised by a degree of non payment from the client, each time this happens his future pension arrangements are threatened. In frustration he has to sit back and watch his client benefit from his own work. He is aggrieved but has to deal with it, what are the options? How should he act in response?

Simple acknowledgement of someone’s plight goes along way to appease a situation. Pointing and wagging the finger does little to help.

Theoretical situations cut no ice and it doesn't take a pension expert to understand, or in this case, not understand, this situation.

I was a committed Trade Unionist all my working life, prior to retirement and I and my wife had the test of our beliefs by being on strike and manning picket lines for 12 weeks, so I know what industrial action is about. But we and our colleagues were striking because of what our employer had actually done to us. The threats about what they might do came before hand but I believe we and our Union acted responsibly by engaging in discusions and attempted negotiations until the threat became real. Until it became the last course of action we could take. We were in the public sector so had little public sympathy. BAA employees, though in the private sector, are probably regarded as public sector employees, which is one of reasons there is little sympathy for the threatened strike action.

I don't deny anyone the right to strike, so long as they follow legal procedures, which I presume have been in this case otherwise the action would have been declared illegal. What I cannot understand or accept though, and I suspect so do most of the people who in their posts have voiced opposition to the strikes, is not the detailed pension arrangements, how they compare with mine or theirs etc., is the fact that for existing employees they have not actually been changed.

Are we right or have we got this fundamentally wrong and the action is to return rights that have been taken away?

Industrial maction is never pretty, rarely popular but this strikes at the heart of Union strategy. It seems to me it relies entirely on the threat to the customers who enjoy the service provided by the employees, whether they are holidaymakers or business people. It assumed that the threatened action would attract the sympathy of those customers and quickly bring BAA to its senses and completely reverse its current position (it seems as though nothing else will do). Judging by the responses on this and other forums, that strategy has not worked.

Hardly surprising, in my view.

jdonice

I am going to Sri Lanka with my girlfriend (on the 16th Jan), for a wedding ( I am guess they are not too please about this strike too).
After this trip I was not going to see her for a long time, so apologies if I am not Sympathetic to BAA staff.
But you (thats the strikers) are going to ruin peoples holidays, plans for weddings, funerals, over something that isn't going to effect you!
That is selfish
If you are successful I would support BAA in canceling Final pension salary scheme's for all its staff not just the new ones (at least it won't have been in vane).
Maybe then the staff will think about leaving BAA, instead of sitting tight till the pension comes in.
Then maybe BAA will get some decent staff in who are glad to have a job!!!
What makes a company work and more productive is a turn over of keen staff, not a bunch of idiots waiting for a final salary when they retire.
I am sure their is allot of "dead weight" at BAA, that needs clearing out any how.
The Final Pension salary scheme is out-dated.
I really hope this strike doesn't go ahead.
If it does I would request that each member that does strike, wears a big yellow t-shirt saying "I cancelled your holiday, how can I help you?", see how well the public treat you...

Arandorastar

... as I said "Hardly surprising!" - but just as I don't agree with Promises My Foot's position I don't agree with the sweeping statements made in the last post. They do though seem to prove a point - sympathy appears to be with BAA not the employees. Seems to me though the Union has given itself and, most importantly, no "wriggle room" to save face on this. So after all the huffing and puffing we will probably hear that "meaningful and constructive dialogue" has been established and the strikes hopefully will be called off and the matter will go quietly away until the employees have got something tangible to strike about.

1982

Can anyone reccomend a travel insurance policy that will cover me in the event of a strike? I am looking to go on holiday from edinburgh airport on 20th January but my usual provider does not cover for industrial action and even though there is no planned strike for that date i am still concerned the dispute could be extended.

I have not booked the holiday yet but would like to do so in the next few days.

vermont100

jdonice wrote: »

I am going to Sri Lanka with my girlfriend (on the 16th Jan), for a wedding ( I am guess they are not too please about this strike too).
After this trip I was not going to see her for a long time, so apologies if I am not Sympathetic to BAA staff.
But you (thats the strikers) are going to ruin peoples holidays, plans for weddings, funerals, over something that isn't going to effect you!
That is selfish
If you are successful I would support BAA in canceling Final pension salary scheme's for all its staff not just the new ones (at least it won't have been in vane).
Maybe then the staff will think about leaving BAA, instead of sitting tight till the pension comes in.
Then maybe BAA will get some decent staff in who are glad to have a job!!!
What makes a company work and more productive is a turn over of keen staff, not a bunch of idiots waiting for a final salary when they retire.
I am sure their is allot of "dead weight" at BAA, that needs clearing out any how.
The Final Pension salary scheme is out-dated.
I really hope this strike doesn't go ahead.
If it does I would request that each member that does strike, wears a big yellow t-shirt saying "I cancelled your holiday, how can I help you?", see how well the public treat you...

think you need to know some facts. baa is changing the pension scheme which will impact on the final salary scheme eventually, whether through lack of funding or by taking everyone off the fs scheme. what actually makes a company work and more productive is to not take the staff for a bunch of idiots. stephen nelson ( chairman) when asked why he was shutting the fs scheme to new employees when the fs scheme was in a sound financial state said " because i can " what sort of management is that. he also said that although the scheme was in good health now this might not always be the case. now this last comment may answer your question about why we are willing to strike over something that may not happen. well i say to you why change a pension scheme that is financially sound and working perfectly. will be interested to hear your answer to that, also why do you think fs pensions are outdated? you have actually come over as a very selfish person yourself whats wrong in working towards a good pension for your family? some of us dont want to rely on state pensions .

vermont100

Arandorastar wrote: »

... as I said "Hardly surprising!" - but just as I don't agree with Promises My Foot's position I don't agree with the sweeping statements made in the last post. They do though seem to prove a point - sympathy appears to be with BAA not the employees. Seems to me though the Union has given itself and, most importantly, no "wriggle room" to save face on this. So after all the huffing and puffing we will probably hear that "meaningful and constructive dialogue" has been established and the strikes hopefully will be called off and the matter will go quietly away until the employees have got something tangible to strike about.

how tangible do you want it? evryone bangs on including the government how important pensions are. not surprising public do not support strike although havent heard to many people saying how wonderful mr nelson is