Anyone else fancy punching BA in the face?

[mikeep]

Not the Baracus type, but British Airways.

How dare they propose striking when I'm due to fly out for two weeks skiing in the USA.

Jesus.......you would have thought they might have asked me first.

Mike

[DDtB]

Another reason for banning the unions and their toys out the pram attitude.

Obviously they want any strike to have maximum impact... but a strike in mid January would still have made their point.

Bunch of selfish cnut !

[Shug]

Actually, my airline based fury is still pointed towards BMI Baby - any airline that can make Ryanair look organised and composed need to die quickly...

But, yeah - surely the day and age where strikes can be tolerated is over (has a strange ring that, with my current avatar...)

[mac]

Maggie tried and failed to get rid of the unions.

I'm a fully paid union member - it's nice to know that when the only thing that matters is the bottom line then there's a away of making people realise that the only reason they have a bottom line is due to the hard work of it's staff.

Is the timing of the strike cyncial - hell yes, it's design for maximum impact. What's the point of striking if your not going to make an impact. Am I sorry for the folk who are potentially disrupted by the action, of course - but before venting displeasure at unions - be it those who represent BA staff or Royal Mail - ask yourself what has gone before to get them to this point, is what they are asking for unreasonable and if not then you should be complaining to the management and not the union.


Peace Out


Citizen Mac

[fd]

I think that and the current BA pension fund disaster says it all . . .

While the unions will always support their members . . . you do have to question the sense in shutting down the business for probably 2 weeks and the resulting ongoing loss of business this will cause . . . what it will achieve is a larger loss and a more pressing need to shed staff and reduce benefits . . . unless of course the intent is to go out of business . . .

Given the intent to strike, I would not consider booking via BA (who would be my preference) until this is fully resolved . . . many other people will take the same view . . . this compouds the problem even if the strike doesn't happen . . .

The Royal Mail are the same, many delivery companies now do not use them, once you change why change back ? . . . so their strikes are threatening the business rather than helping it . . .

The unions are not very smart . . .

Fd

[j2 lot]

[mikeep]

[Lazydonkey]

When i was at SP they did a HUGE pay restructure which shafted a lot of people - including 2 women that worked for me. They were both fully paid up union members, had been for most of their career (35 years in one case).

What did the union do to help these paid up members ? Nothing. fcuk all. What they actually did was say "most of our members are better off via this deal" and left them to it. I met with three members of the union to try and get them to take the case on but they refused. Throughout the whole affair they were utter utterly useless. Both ended up cancelling their membership in disgust.

I had to take my ex-employer to an employment tribunal last year. What they did to me was illegal. Cut and dried. Would a union have prevented it from happening? No. Would they have given me more backup and support? No. I was one of 5 people who were affected - 2 were union members. I won my case. They lost theirs. Only difference was that I represented myself and took a loan out to get limited legal advice......as opposed to their sh*t two bit lawyer.

When the sh*t hits the fan (and it will for most people at some point in their career) the only person that has your back is yourself. All unions do is postpone the inevitable, or in many cases accelerate the inevitable. If you are an employer who is intent on being a twat, intent on doing a bad thing to your employees there is nothing that will stop you from doing that......not a union....not legislation... nothing.

The Royal mail will get their plans through regardless, all the unions are doing is making things worse. They have no worth in today's society.

[pete]

I think that and the current BA pension fund disaster says it all . . .

While the unions will always support their members . . . you do have to question the sense in shutting down the business for probably 2 weeks and the resulting ongoing loss of business this will cause . . . what it will achieve is a larger loss and a more pressing need to shed staff and reduce benefits . . . unless of course the intent is to go out of business . . .

Given the intent to strike, I would not consider booking via BA (who would be my preference) until this is fully resolved . . . many other people will take the same view . . . this compouds the problem even if the strike doesn't happen . . .

The Royal Mail are the same, many delivery companies now do not use them, once you change why change back ? . . . so their strikes are threatening the business rather than helping it . . .

The unions are not very smart . . .

Fd

Maybe if more people had walked out the door sooner this country wouldn't be in the mess it is in now.


There is no reason for the Royal Mail to have competition and to exist as anything other than a State owned public service. And operate as a state owned public service, ie borderline employer of the last resort, not great pay traded against security in the lean times and pensions on retirement.

Competition is not only no always necessary but in the Royla Mails' case it is undesirable, amounting to little more than the privatisation of profit and the socialising (sp?) of loss.

[H8OAG]

Mac
Loved the reference to " The bastion of the Tooting Popular Front"
I must agree with the earlier comments that recent and imminant industrial action in the Post Office and BA will cause further losses which may prove unsustainable.
A strategy which is hardly safeguarding their members pay and conditions for the future?

Are Unions relevant in 2009?

As a manager, I grudgingly concede that Union membership is on the increase as people try and protect their jobs in this world weary recession (against other union members in some cases!!).
As someone who attends the occasional industrial tribunal, It is my view that those who come up before tribunals without union representation rarely get a good outcome.
I do however get troubled by the hypocrisy of some Union leaders today. Not content with £200k salaries and Grace and Favour Homes, they can still teach your local MP a thing or two when filling out an Expense claim form.
I attended a Public Sector event recently where a certain Union Leader was staying in a £390 per night suite when his"London Pad" was but a Chauffered drive away

[tenkfeet]

Willie Walsh has had a while to prepare for the strike that has been on the cards for months , will be interesting to see what happens.

The days of cabin crew getting paid £80k a year will soon be over. I am sure there are plenty of people who would do it for half that . I was on a BA flight some time ago where the Head Cabin crew was getting paid more than the Captain of the plane.

Having had some unfortunate dealing with the nieve unite union , one thing always happens no matter what the outcome of any action . The union officials keep their well paid jobs . Advising them to strike at Christmas in the current climate is madness . Could it be the catalyst for the down sizing of BA as passengers seek other carriers. What will that do for their members jobs.

[Stevoraith]

My boss is supposed to be flying to Florida on the 22nd from Gatwick.
He flies from Edinburgh to Gatwick on the 21st (before the strikes). He has been told by Expedia (he booked the package with them) that he must still take his flight to Gatwick, even if it has been confirmed that his long haul flight is cancelled.
This is just in case they find a resolution on the evening of the 21st and the strikes are called off.

If he is not at the airport and the flight is suddenly reinstated then he will not be able to claim on his travel insurance. sh*t state of affairs for him.

On the union topic, I'm currently being bullied into joining at my work. When I started I was in research and development and it wasn't really the done thing for us educated types to join the union. That was for the apprentices and grunts on the shop floor who were more likely to do something necessitating disciplinary action and therefore some union representation.

As it turns out I've followed a product through into the production stage and now work on the shop floor.
There has recently been the threat of strike action for.... well, I have yet to hear a reasoned argument other than some mumbles about pay rises not being as much as hoped.
Personally, I was happy that we got a rise at all considering the state of the economy at the time but some people didn't buy into that argument.

The union have now agreed a resolution which is a £100 bonus payment (gross) to all staff, and a minimum rise of £500. This will only affect those on less than £25k as everyone got a minimum of 2% at the last rises.

My beef is that it will cost me about £12 a month to join the union. I'm not going to punch someone in the face, or get caught having a sh*t in the conference room so I won't need them to defend me. And if I don't pay it I still get the 'benefits' that they manage to negotiate (which seem to be pretty much feck all every year).

I think I'm going to have to join for appearances sake, but can anyone give me a reason why it will benefit me?

p.s what really bugs me about the union is that the 'top brass' seem to be morons. The newsletters that get pinned on the notice boards seem to be written by 12year olds and tend to use phrases like "it's no fair" and use obviously flawed and simplified logic to back up their arguments. I'd be more inclined to join if I thought my money was paying for an intelligent person to argue the case of my colleagues and I

[j2 lot]

Don't be bullied into joining, they take your money and use it to fund campaigns for workers rights in some far flung country rather than helping their own members.

I left Unison several years ago when as junior managers myself and 4 others had an enforced drop of £5k p.a. salary - the union were confident of compensation and fought our case for us, only to then forget to lodge paperwork so the cut off date for appeal passed. Bunch of useless halfwits.

BA strike will seriously damage their business- forcing customers away from a company isn't exactly going to be good for the long term future of the company - or the union members working for it.

[BiggestNizzy]

I can see both sides of the story the cabin crew don't want there wages halved and there work doubled, The managment can't afford to pay there cabin crew twice the amount virgin are paying and they cannot afford to have more cabin crew then everyone else either.

What will probably happen is Virgin will end up being the flag carrier.

Has their been a strike that has actually worked ? off the top of my head I can't think of any.

[graeme]

I've tried 3 times to compose a reply to this thread and on each occasion it just turned into a lengthy rant about low-cost f*cking airlines.