[Anonymous]

[VintageKrug]

BASSA/Unite have announced a strike ballot to run 21 December 2010-21 January 2011.

It will be interesting to see how far its numbers have diminished since it pulled the total off its own website when it reached 9,279 down from a peak of over 11,000 in 2009.

Any action will have zero impact on London City and London Gatwick flights, whose employees do not support the action. At Heathrow BA will run 100% of longhaul and a high proportion of shorthaul services even if action takes place (highly unlikely, and in any case far more cabin crew voted to strike than actually withdrew their labour).

The BASSA Unite branch has engineered this strike ballot to culminate on 21 January; the day Willie Walsh departs BA to become CEO of IAG Group. This demonstrates the highly personal and political purpose of this strike, rather than any underlying desire to address the welfare of cabin crew.

Second, BASSA has failed to articulate a “new” reason for this action; striking would be “unprotected” and therefore strikers face being sacked by BA without recourse to suing for wrongful dismissal. Even if the action was declared “protected” (highly unlikely) BA would be able to sack strikers without any legal compulsion to re-instate, even if wrongful dismissal was proven. BASSA and Unite have failed to articulate this to their members in advance of the ballot.

Problem is, of course, that the real militants don’t do anything as daft as strike and risk being sacked – sickness, long term illness, rosters all come into play to ensure it’s the poor, misled cannon fodder crew who will end up getting the chop.

Personally, I think BA will maintain the moral high ground and retain those who take action, but will certainly have grounds to sue Unite for disruption and illegal action; that could be a very big bill indeed.

In a third own-goal the 21 January end date leaves just 12 weeks – or until 17 April – for action to take place. That’s five days short of the Easter Holidays, when disruption would have been most effective.

You really couldn’t make it up! What a total shambles BASSA is.

[Bucksnet]

VK, I think you mean whose and not who’s. Like its and it’s.

Anyway, most grateful for you’re posts.

[Binman62]

VK. I agree with everything other than the timing. Easter is indeed the weekend of the 23rd April however the state schools break on the 8th and private schools before that. Loadfactors will be at their highest from the 1st to the 15th April. It would be a disaster for families if there was to be action in early April. My own flights are booked for this period.

[AdrianHenryAsia]

VK – I am glad we live in a democracy where people are free to express the views – you are entitled to your view as the cabin crew/unions to theirs.

Unions are not uncommon and fortunately/unfortunately have their place within working practices of many public sector (or ex public sector) organisations. There is very little you or anyone else can do to change that. I’m not aware that any strike which properly organised and orchestrated could be classed as illegal.

I have to say I find of your posts generally very informative and helpful when factual however the post above is just your opinion – which you are more than justified to have. I have no problem with this.

Many posters on the forum believe (rightly or wrongly) that you are an employee of BA, which I am aware you have vociferously denied however posts such as this do nothing to deflect from this – they simply reinforce it so perhaps you could be more tolerant of them in future if you continue your very pro BA agenda which is often unsolicited (such as this post) and done of your own accord. Very much a case of if you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

My personal view is that there are better ways to resolve problems than to strike and BA are just a culpable as BASSA – the difference between us is that I don’t feel the need to ram my views down readers proverbial throats without invitation.

I look forward to your continued posts in the forum as the vast majority of the time they are of real value and help – unfortunately, I feel this one isn’t.

[VintageKrug]

Actually, I support the role of unions as negotiating bodies, and most especially in lower paid and cyclical industries such as aviation.

That has long been my stated position on here.

What is occurring at BASSA is an embarrassment to progressive unionism and is doing untold harm both to its members and the country as a whole.

Once again I would be grateful if you kept me personally out of your posts; by all means criticise what I post (including spelling – oops!) and engage in the debate, but it really gets rather dull if all you can do is suggest I am a BA plant – I have no professional or personal connection whatsoever with the travel industry.

Here is the info on how a “properly organised and orchestrated” strike can indeed be ruled illegal, if outside the protected period:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employment/employment-legislation/employment-guidance/page17758.html

[VintageKrug]

There is now a train of thought which believes that this is all a ruse by Unite to permit BASSA to “jump off the cliff” by acceding to all their demands (dates, unprotected action etc.) and then once it has pointed out to the BASSA membership that action would be unprotected, Unite can then re-assert its authority on this troublesome branch and pursue a settlement with BA.

[AdrianHenryAsia]

VK – its very hard to detach the “poster” (or should that be postee) from the topic being posted about – especially given your originail post is based upon your personal views.

I am not suggesting you are a BA plant – I am saying that you can’t blame people for having that view given the nature of your posts. I personally think you have no connection to BA becuase BA wouldn’t endorse such an churlish approach, however I can fully appreciate why others do have this view.

[Hippocampus]

This is rather succinct critique of the position BASSA and Unite find themselves in:

http://dofonline.co.uk/blogs/the-edge/business/unite-management-british-airways-23423432/

As things stand at the moment, I do not see a settlement being reached between the company and Unite. I think a lot of goodwill has been squandered when Unite reneged on its promise to put the latest offer to the membership. From the company’s perspective, there seems little point in putting forward any revised offers when the two branches are still in conflict with each other and Unite cannot control them.

In terms of what happens next, I expect BA will keep its powder dry until the outcome of the ballot is known. If some in BASSA and Unite are expecting the departure of Willie Walsh to the new International Airlines Group holding company to mean that the company will be more concilliatory, I would not be certain of that. Quite the opposite in fact.

[VintageKrug]

Interesting to read this letter which apparently went out last night.

Seems the previous offer is being put to both non-union and Unite members, regardless of the strike ballot. I would imagine a robust response if there is a majority vote for action:

—————

Dear colleague

In recent weeks, I have been hearing from many of you at the crew report centre, through the recent crew survey, by email and at the In Touch days.

The overwhelming feedback is a desire to end this dispute, and a sense that many parts of our offer are really important to you.

Yet if you are a member of Unite, you will soon be sent a ballot paper that could lead to more strikes: a strike that would prolong the dispute and make the offer unaffordable.

I have therefore made a decision based on your direct feedback to me.

I am going to move ahead with the offer, in two phases. Firstly for non-union members, and then for union members assuming there is no mandate for strike action.

Moving ahead with the offer – for non union members

If you were not a member of the union, you can sign up to the individual offer.

All you need to do is confirm that you were not a member of Unite on December 14, 2010 and you will secure the full individual offer, which includes:

Two years of contractual pay rises worth up to 5.9% from February 2011
A permanent, contractual, variable pay top up scheme for Heathrow crew on Worldwide and Eurofleet
Protection for your terms and conditions, now and in the future

I will write to you shortly with all the details you will need and a form for you to return to me by the end of January.

Once you have signed up, the deal is yours to keep and it is not dependent on the outcome of the strike ballot.

Moving ahead with the offer – for union members

If you are a Unite member, I also plan to make the deal available to you that we made to Unite.

For this to happen, you need to vote no for a strike. I will only be able to afford to move ahead with the offer on this basis.

I don’t want you to miss out on this deal and, from what you have said to me, you don’t either. So please vote and we can give you the chance to have the same protections and pay rises.

What happens now

Please vote, vote no, and encourage your colleagues to do the same.

If the majority of you reject the call for strike action, we can avoid the distress a strike causes to our customers and to you.

Vote no and we can:

End the dispute
Secure the deal and pave the way for the full return of staff travel in 2013
Look after our customers
Avoid divisions between colleagues at work and onboard

Unite has told us that it has appointed an independent company to run this strike ballot and you can be totally confident that your vote will be completely confidential.

Please use your vote, and vote no to further strike action. If you do have any questions please contact your crew team manager who will be happy to talk with you.

Link to the offer made to Unite or see the IFCE Intranet Homepage/Useful Links/ New offer to reach agreement

Thank you

Bill Francis
Head of Inflight Customer Experience

—————-

Here is the offer made to cabin crew:

http://uniteba.com/ESW/Files/151010_Revised_Offer_Collectivev6.doc

[Flyboy18]

VK….can i ask how you got that?

[FlyingChinaman]

scott72: We now have a VKleaks on this forum!!!!!!!!!!

[StephenLondon]

What VK has published is also published on a variety of other forums such as PPrune…once pretty much anything comes from Unite, BASSA or BA regarding the strike action/ballot/IA, etc., it appears very quickly online…
This particular communique was posted last evening on another forum at 18:42…you just have to know where to look!

[VintageKrug]

It is of considerable concern to me that people like scott72 aren’t aware of these other outlets for news and information.

[Cedric_Statherby]

Flying Chinaman – thank you. One of the best puns I’ve read for years!

VK and others – I am fascinated by this, as it appears that BA seem to be able to differentiate between union and non-union staff when making pay offers. Is this legal? How does it avoid the accusation of “disadvantaging unionised labour”, or in other words penalising staff for belonging to a union? That has I thought been illegal for decades (literally).

More generally, any strike by BASSA will affect five groups of people: BA’s customers, BA’s shareholders, BA’s cabin crew, BA’s management and BASSA’s officers

I observe in passing that:
– only the first three (customers, shareholders and staff) lose if a strike is called
– only the last two (management and BASSA officials) can make a strike unnecessary or call it off

SO, we have a situation that (a) those that suffer are powerless to stop a strike and (b) those that can stop it don’t suffer. What an invitation for intransigence and irresponsibility!

[Author]

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