83.2% Vote for Industrial Action

“The buying public understand that strikes may occur and are booking elsewhere.”

Not this member of the buying public! Have just booked 3 BA international sectors into/out of LHR.

I don’t consider there’s any risk at all of the flights being cancelled. The “threat” simply has no relevance.

Personally if this strike goes ahead, it will be damaging for the airline. The cabin crew should be fortunate to have a job. Across the world private and public sector companies are removing benefits as a way of saving costs. The unions should understand this and are not beign sympatheic.

Utlimately, if the airline collapses, then the strikers will find themselves out of a job and fighting for their personal survival. I think the unions should seek the opinions of British Airways customers before taking action over Easter and other key dates.

As a result customers will move to other airlines and the stikers will be at fault if the airline collapses, it won’t be a win win situation for the public or the staff of British Airways.

AB – I fully agree with you and believe the vast majority of cabin crew would agree with you. They do not want to strike.
Am of the opinion the vote is more indicative of their strongly held belief that they cannot trust the BA leadership and despise the way they have been treated especially wrt travel and their reps being targeted. In response they are showing a high level of unanimity.

BA needed to have excelled in communication and employed tactics which would have attracted the majority of the cabin crew to their cause thus isolating the militant few. Unfortunately they did the opposite.

It is understandable that BA sought regime change within the intransigent elements BASSA, however their bungling, maladroit, approach has created martyrs to the regime instead.

As noted earlier, one trait of effective cabin crew is endless patience, the dispute will continue until a fair solution is found and trust restored. Until then, every passenger who fails to book because they wish to avoid uncertainty is bottom line profit lost to the competition.

Right Tete de Cuvee.
Time for a basic lesson in mathematics.

If you look at the figures for the recent ballot the numbers stack up as follows

Votes for strike action 5811
Votes against strike action 1170

Now if your assertion that there was an 8 :1 majority in favour of strike action, based on 1170 votes against that would put the For figure at 9360. However, in this recent farce of a ballot there were only a total of 6981 votes cast.

What is correct is that around 12% of the membership actively voted AGAINST strike action. It is also true that 29% couldn’t be bothered to vote. So only 59% of Unite members actually voted for strike action.

I understand that BA employ some 13,500 cabin crew. On that basis Unite members account for 73% of all cabin crew. It also follows that when you look at the total number of cabin crew, those who have voted for strike action amount to a mere 43%.

If news organisations choose to publish figures without first checking the veracity of them, it tends to suggest sloppy reporting standards and does nothing to enhance their credibility as reliable sources of information. If others then pick up on these numbers and publicise them without running a simple sanity check, it at best makes them look foolish.

There will always be scabin crew, or shall I say cowards who are all too willing to extract the benefits of union membership including their agreed salary and terms & conditions and not support their elected representative body. But I, like many on here and all over the country don’t see the need for strikes… Instead balanced negotiation. If this fails which it has historically then so be it.

Voting union membership essentially represents LGW and LHR the former not particularly motivated or affected by the 10 points of this dispute hence refraining from voting (or indeed yes/no). This is not to mention the population of new fleet not represented unite.

Basically, 6000 yes votes represent a huge vocal portion of this eligible work group. Indeed, it’s an enormous group of disgruntled workers and it is pleasing that BA are now jn sustained dialogue with the elected cabin crew representative union body.

The cabin crew department have apparently achieved their cost savings already with the introduction of new fleet etc.. Surely the way forward is clear and should be harmonious?

When we talk of other BA departments making sacrifices let’s not forget it was a rather lowly 67% of BALPA members which agreed to their new pay deal. This was applauded by BA at the time. Say no more.

It’s easily fixed. Sack them.

Only a small portion of short hauls from LHR will be affected. No disruption LCY, LGW or long haul LHR.

Impact of strike minimal.

From my point of view and I was caught up in this last year BA did a magnificent job getting me to my destination albeit at times not in the standard I would usually expect, however was well compensated with cash and miles.

My recent experiences of BA in CE and recently in NEW First have been superb. Especially when compared to the dismal offerings such as that which BMi currently provides.

Pixelmeister – I stand corrected wrt the 12%

If it is about in-flight performance then BA should seek advice from
this guy..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/southeastwales/hi/tv_and_radio/newsid_8560000/8560871.stm

However, am of the view that the long serving crew already have the wherewithall to operate with minimal intervention, they take responsibility and ownership of situations which is manna for most enlightened/right thinking companies. The same cannot be said for fresh from college newbies and lower calibre/non-career opportunity to travel-the-world types.

Am interpretting your comment as indicating the new BA leadership approach appears to want to impose management as opposed to encourage empowerment – a retrograde step in my view.

Am not aware of complaints about inflight crew performance by pax being such an issue it necessitates structural change.

Personally I believe it is more about terms and conditions as opposed to in-flight cabin crew performance.