83.2% Vote for Industrial Action

rhamnous – Ah, “read between the lines”. A classic non-specific BASSA phrase that requires no evidence to back it up. Along with “keep the faith”, “believe”, “justice” and “fairness”.

Tete, I’m afraid you have a very rose tinted view of BA’s in flight service in the air. For years by far the biggest complaint about BA is the inconsistent standards of service. For every good crew, there is another that either does not want to be there or try and rush the service as quickly as possible and disappear off the bunks. All this points to the lack of performance management highlighted by pixel.

I note your snide dig at the Mixed Fleet “newbies”. Shame on you.

Tete

I have no idea what approach the new leadership at BA are taking, I’m not in that line of work. I was not suggesting ‘imposing’ management. I believe that the root problem exists because a number of the current on board supervisors – I believe BA refer to them as cabin service directors – are simply not up to the job of managing their teams.

If you look throught this and other forums, many will state that BA has a good on board product, but the service delivery is patchy. The first line responsibility for ensuring consistency in service delivery rests with the on board supervisor. I would suggest that rather than provide the correct formative feedback, many seem to prefer to ‘go native’ and align themselves with the people they are charged with managing. It avoids confronting the problem and after all, they may not see the same batch of crew for an awful long time. The snag is that the problem doesn’t go away, it merely becomes somebody else’s concern. A bit like pass the parcel, when the content is something rather unpleasant. If the supervisors were subject to more stringent performance management, the underperfomers would be reduced. Moreover, the performance of those they are managing would be enhanced. Result, a more consistent service delivery. I see the removal of one crew member on board in November 2009 as an opportunity for the cabin service directors to a) get a lot closer to their teams and as a result put them in a better place to provide coaching and feedback b) empower them to make more valid assessments of ways to improve the product, or provide decent feedback on issues on the product or ways in which it is being delivered. For example, I have read that some cabin crew feel that the current CW meal service is overly labour intensive.

There is probably something in the relationship between cabin service directors and their immediate line managers that also needs addressing, Good performance breeds good performance. It’s very much a top down thing. Problems can and do occur when one tier of management is unable to see how the tier below the one that they are managing are performing.

Points well made Pixelmeister, NTarrant. I can think of no industry where the line person/immediate supervisor relationship is so temporary and disjoint.

Given this situation surely it would yield a greater number of successful outcomes to recruit more career orientated individuals than travel-the-world youngsters.

Sorry, there has been a lot of rather uninformed talk about the standard of the newer recruits to BA.

I have been involved in recruitment for a few years. Standard procedure is to assess whether or not the candidate meets the initial criteria in terms of hard and soft skills. Age has nothing to do with it. In fact, in the current climate, you are ill advised to make decisions based on age as you will wind up on the wrong end of a court judgement. Now I cannot speak for BA, but I would think that their recruitment processes might be more stringent than my outfit. They may insist that candidates provide evidence that they meet all criteria as opposed to meet the majority and maybe not show evidence in one or two minor areas.

I’ve also been casting over a couple of other forums and get the impression that the majority of the new joiners at BA have previously worked as cabin crew, either as temps or for other airlines like Virgin or for charter carriers. This is somewhat at odds with the line being touted by some that they are all ‘gap year students’.

I also note from BA’s web site that promotion in the new fleet will be based on merit. Picking up on NTarrant’s point about the fact that cabin crew only come together as a team for short spells , I would consequently expect that part of the selection criteria would be for highly motivated, team oriented people. The sort who can behave in a professional manner and work together for the common good. I think it is probably quite hard to sustain that level of behaviour over a long period of time and eventually people do get burnt out. That is the point at which they need to recognise that it is time for a change. I’m thus not convinced that there is a such a thing as a career for the basic cabin crew. I can see that there is something if you go for advancement into one of the supervisory roles, but that opportunity will not be open for all.

Finally, there is a deal of difference between length of service and experience and capability. I have a staff member who has significant length of service, his experience is nowhere near that of one of his colleagues who has been with the company for two years. Why ? Because the colleague has worked for a range of different companies in our industry over the past ten years and brings a breadth that working for one outfit for 15 years simply doesn’t provide.

Alasdair

Nice thoughts re: boosting the salary for Mixed Fleet to be on a par with the starting salary for the older contract crew. But it all falls apart when you look at the reason behind Mixed Fleet salaries.

In the vast majority of organisations the single largest cost is employee pay, pension and NI costs. You can do a certain amount with renegotiation with suppliers over cost of raw materials, but there is a finite limit on that. You can undertake economy drives to reduce overheads, but again, there is a point at which you can go no further and you hit it pretty soon. On the profit side, the market will only stand price rises for so much before you start to see sales tail off. No, if you can reduce your employee costs, you are on to a real winner.

In BA’s case it is abundantly apparent that the ‘old’ fleet cabin crew are paid vastly more than the industry average in the UK. The introduction of a new fleet with pay, terms and conditions that are closer aligned to the market rate will do a lot to redress the balance. To continue to pay over the odds is foolish. Do you believe it makes business sense to pay more than you need to for staff ? Forget the claptrap about experience, these are people who are new to your organisation. They have the requisite skills and competencies, do you see any justification for paying say 30% over the market rate for them ?

As far as integrating them with the other fleets at BA goes. I thought that one of the key differences (aside from pay) between this new fleet and the others is that they work both longhaul and shorthaul. To integrate them would mean placing all cabin crew on the same terms and conditions – shorthaul, longhaul and those at LGW. Would the Unite agree to that ? Can’t see it happening.

Alasdair

I don’t know what line of business you are in, but I note that you opted not to respond to my question regarding paying over the odds for staff. I know my company wouldn’t consider paying the kind of difference that you see between what BA was paying cabin crew and what Virgin does. I also noted that the deal offered to cabin crew last year included a 6% pay rise over two years, so your statement about BA gunning for a a cull of those amongst cabin crew is factually incorrect.

Let’s look somewhere other than flight and cabin crew. Let’s look at what BA pay office staff. I’ll wager that BA don’t pay 30-40% over the odds for its admin staff. If BA paid its managers significantly over the odds, then surely it would be a magnet for those who want something less stressful than a job in the City but that paid City wages. I don’t get the impression that this is the case though.

I do agree that the situation needs resolution, but also think that it is time that the two sides recognised their relative roles. Management are there to manage the business. Unions are there to advise of the effect of management decisions on their members. Note the word advise. Unions do not have the right to dictate how the business should be run. We live in a free society. If we don’t like the terms and conditions that our employers are offering, we have the ability to take our skills and capabilities elsewhere. Slavery in the UK went out centuries ago. If an organisation encounters difficulties in the recruitment and retention of staff, it makes business sense to work out why and do something to redress the balance. I note that the latest ballot did not centre on one issue but was a ragbag of ten grievances. I’d love to know why, if they were so terrible, they were not included in the ballots in 2009/10. To my way of thinking what we are seeing is a union that simply has no interest in settling this dispute. One has to wonder now whether this is down to the management/union relationship or some wider political agenda.

Alasdair – “Are you then trying to tell me BA captains must earn the same as Easyjet’s (as they certainly fly comparable hours)”

Really Bassa needs to get its figures right when it comes to comparing pilot wages. For one thing you cant compare BA’s top Capt. pay with easyjet, as easy has no long haul operations, and the highest figure for BA capt. is the long haul figure. you cant even compare to virgin, as its a much smaller company and not comparable.

You can get all pilots pay from aslmost every airline out there available at http://www.pilotjobsnetwork.com

For example

LH top payscale for capt – 240000 euros
LH base payscale for capt – 132000 euros

BA top payscale for capt – 144000 pounds
BA base payscale for capt – 69000 pounds

easyjet (there is no top/bottom) – 82000 pounds

Although BOTH LH and easyjet captains get pay awards based on company profits, which BA captains dont get. Easyjet pilots also get pay bonuses based on years of service, but again you cant compare BA to Easyjet, thats like comparing a Ford to Ferrari.

The most comparable airline to BA is LH.

So why is it then BA believes their crew are paid above “uk industry average” including the likes of Easyjet which they lately have been compared? Easyjet do long ranges as you say Craig. In any case, and I repeat myself.. BA offers a wage and the applicant accept this – as what happened with old contract crew. They have had a chance to adjust this and now employ crew on a measly wage which has achieved their cost savings across cabin crew.