It is easy to forget that the British Airways cabin crew dispute is about real people's lives; here, Left Foot Forward presents the testimony of a BA employee.
The British Airways dispute is often portrayed as a battle of wills between management and union bosses, glossing over the fact that people’s livelihoods and lives are at stake. On the day that union members meet for the first time this year, ahead of the next strike ballot which closes on 21 January, we hear from a longtime BA employee on the effect on their life; they have asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals
Cabin crew are a disparate workforce varying enormously in terms of age, race, class and nationality. We don’t know each other. We meet each other for the first time at the pre-flight briefing and after the trip, largely never see each other again. For many of us, attending a union meeting is the first political action we have ever taken. And British Airways cannot understand why 91% of the workforce is unionised, why at every ballot, between 81% and 92% vote to strike and how the union managed to realise that unprecedented degree of solidarity.
There is one simple answer: A company gets the union it deserves.
So for a management fixated on its own cabin crew being the overpaid, under worked, indolent, thieving entity that stands between it and an even greater increase to their personal bonuses and share options, there is also one simple answer: destroy the union.
In pursuit of this quest, British Airways has engaged thoroughly in every principle of union busting, including the creation of a climate of fear among the workforce in an attempt to undermine confidence in the union’s power and its ability to protect and to chip away at the workers’ resolve.
BA created a secret intelligence unit with the specific remit of gathering evidence against striking cabin crew and have actively encouraged staff to inform. They conduct covert surveillance and having dispensed with normal policies and procedures, threaten, suspend and dismiss crew in unprecedented numbers with apparent impunity.
I was one of the suspended cabin crew but am now sacked. I am a single parent, have a good degree and have worked for them for more than ten years. I earned about £27,000 per year. I love my job and always have.
Some of the very best days of my life have been spent on trips with crew who though a bunch of strangers are among the warmest, most dynamic, creative and caring people I have ever known. I may not have always been there for the school play and have had to juggle madly like all working parents with the added difficulty of being away for days on end and doing it all through a haze of chronic jetlag. But my working for the airline has afforded me and my family some incredible experiences.
I have always enjoyed the actual work; the meeting the passengers and making a difference to them, however small. I care about them. I respect them. And it is because of this that I believe in my union’s aims and actions.
Being sacked from BA means not just the loss of my livelihood but also my entire way of life. I don’t know who I am if I am not BA cabin crew. And being sacked is one thing, but being sacked on trumped up charges heard by a kangaroo court as a pawn in a political game is quite another.
It’s actually not, not yet anyway, the how am I going to pay my mortgage that keeps me awake at night. It’s the lies and the injustice and the powerlessness. It’s the moral outrage that I play through my brain on a continuous loop all day and night as though if I run it once more the outcome might be different.
In taking on BA, we cabin crew take on the British anti-union labour laws and the courts, we take on union busters and one of the biggest legal firms in the world, Baker McKenzie. In continuing the fight we expose ourselves to the unbridled vitriol of a largely right-wing press. Our own management will undoubtedly continue removing benefits, making threats and stepping up their campaign of dismissing those who do not yield to their brave new world order.
Prior to this dispute, BA cabin crew may not have been political animals. We are now.
96 Responses to “The BA cabin crew dispute: The view from the shop floor”
Shane
To put the “perks” argument to bed,
Nick, Cabin Crew by nature are business travellers hired to travel for that company. Laws and legislation currently exist to ensure that these travellers as they work in a safety related industry they are entitled to specific amounts of rest between duties (you work in health services so I am sure you are aware of this however with many friends who are in the health services it still does amaze me at the hours many of you have to work). The airlines are required to obey these rules. The hotels are not a perk but a necessity. I am unaware of any airline that forces its crews to pay for their own accomodation down route and transport to and from the airport. I as longhaul BA crew have stayed in these so called luxury hotels alongside crew of other airlines such as Virgin, American, Qatar, Emirates, BMI and if Im to go down the loco route even Southwest, various charter airlines, canjet etc. Any business man or woman who travels for their company receive similar treatment with the costs being expensed to the company. The main difference to BA is that they more often then not get massive discount rates on those hotel rooms for the crew as they hotels are guaranteed year round occupancy for the duration of the contract and are happy to have the crews there because we may potential spend our own money on the hotels auxiliary services. So dont be fooled, BA and most airlines are paying very little for us to be accomodated.
As for the staff travel, well if you can afford to use it so be it, I know my finances are tight.
In this recession I have yet to hear of anyone of my friends being coerced into paycuts exceeding 15%. We are being replaced and the company are attempting to force us onto a new contract which for many of us could see us taking home up to 50% less then we currently do now. This is just not realistic nor at all fair.
There are plenty of things we could have done to give the company the savings it required any many of them were considered but the management have simply refused to negotiate – fact!
I genuinly fear for my future, I am constantly anxious when I hear yet another attempt by the compnay to undermine and undervalue us. Some say we achieved nothing from the strikes but at least we still have our contracts after 18 months and proved to the world that WW and his team have outright LIED to you all about BAs “Fight for survival” by the posting of a significant profit at the end of the year and the awarding of bonus payments to management. Just remember that, you were lied to. The very people that you are trying to defend deliberatly mislead you in an attempt to win nothing more then a PR campaign.
Now, a simple way to describe to you what is happening to us currently which you may be able to relate to your own lives which I heard someone use to explain to another outside party recently……
You are a business man in a team of say 6 employed by a company. You work 5 days a week with a handsome salary and a motivational commission package. You come in one day and learn that the company has hired 2 new people on a much reduced salary of say £2.40 an hour ( 😉 ). They do not earn commission however there is a recession taking place and they are just happy for the job.
You are not initially concerned as you hear they will initially just work one or two days a week and will work alongside you. But then suddenly down the line you hear they have taken on one more person at this rate. They are not given Tuesday as their day of work and you are not required that day. Then another person is hired and they get Tuesday and Wednesdays and you are left at home on this days not earning your commission. Before you know it there are 6 people on this rate working pretty much every day of the week and you are barely required at all and left at home to earn your basic until eventually the to company advise you that your job description has now changed and you are no longer required. The only way you can retain a job is to switch to this new contract and earn significantly less. You consider leaving and going elsewhere but soon realise that yes, there is a recession taking place and everywhere else is doing the same. You make your decision whatever way you do.
THEN…..A year or two down the line, the recession is over and you try to get a similar contract to what you had before….NOT A BLOODY CHANCE….No company will honour that and use the whole “well the industry has changed” rant. Everyones terms and conditions have now been permanently eroded and will never improve resulting in a dramatic drop in standard of life for anyone while the fat cats in management reap the benefits.
Is this fair? I personally dont think so. This is EXACTLY what is happening to the Heathrow Cabin Crew at British Airways. If allowed to continue it will spread to the ground staff, then the pilots (oh yes it will), engineers, support staff….then other companys and before you know the whole nation will be in a grip of unreversible social change which only goes against first world idealology of social betterment!
Just my 6pence worth!
Shane
Apologies for the series of grammatical errors!
Nick Robertson
RT @leftfootfwd: The BA cabin crew dispute: The view from the shop floor: http://bit.ly/gHNsM8
Norma S
For Ronnie and those who wish to know more about the cabin crew dispute and pov, just over two years ago, a document was leaked, which outlined the plans of British Airways to introduce a new lower paid group of flight attendants on lower pay and ess favourable terms and conditions. The stumbling block of course was the union, which would have to go if these plans were to come to fruition. The fear of the existing crew was that little by little their work would move to the new fleet on the lower terms and conditions. Seeing as crew rely on working to boost their relatively low basic pay this was a matter of great concern.
Under the guise of a ‘fight for survival’ Mr Walsh insisted that the company could not continue paying the existing crew their same salaries, and survive. The union were reasonable and found the cost savings and the ways to deliver them. Immediately Walsh changed the goal posts and said that even more money had to be saved. Again the union came up with the goods and again this was rejected. This has never been about saving money but instead to bust the union to bring in the new lower paid employees that would in the next decade deliver enormous cost savings. Savings destined for the pockets of the shareholders and the directors.
The fight for survival was less than subtle subtefuge as two years into this dispute the economic outlook is improving, the airline has introduced new routes and indeed the directors have been awarded £3 million, yes that’s right three million, in bonuses.
And for those of you who believe that it is acceptable to employ people on little more than the legal minimum and to attempt to threaten your existing staff into accepting a lower wage (unless they are of course directors) I say this. When these people cannot exist on their paltry salaries and turn to the government for state benefits to support them (as British Airwys manaers at Gatwick have advised their employees to do)who do you think picks up the bill? Yes you the taxpayer, who will face increasing direct and indirect taxation to suppor a two tier society.
A race to the bottom in salaries and terms and conditions is in nobodys interests.
R
Gosh this debate is being really hauled away from its origins.
Are BA using union busters on its cabin crew union?