At the other end of the spectrum you have a modern hard-nosed employer who wants top-grade staff willing to put in the maximum effort (i.e. 80 hours a week if required), but they want maximum value for money too, so at the first sign of economic downturn they want to lay off everybody at a moment's notice. If pesky employment laws don't permit it, bend the rules and "performance manage" people out of the business by setting impossible targets.
We don't want to live in either of those extremes, I think.
Unions are one mechanism for trying to take a middle course. Employment laws are another.
We all lose if the law gets involved (except the lawyers
).The unions need to evolve to help guide companies to managing their workforce with compassion and common sense. The boards of our PLCs need to learn to be more open and honest so that the unions are more likely to trust them when they say that there is not enough business to warrant the current workforce or T&Cs.
Both BA and the workforce will benefit from reasonable terms and conditions - even if they're a little more expensive than the competition. Air travel is not all about cost - a lot of it is discretionary and people will buy what they think will be comfortable - not what's cheapest. So if for some reason the T&C's are unreasonable, both sides should co-operate to make them more reasonable.
I ought to be more sympathetic to the "vote labour" union cause, but I'm not. If their slogan was "be reasonable" I might be more interested
Cheers,
Robin
