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”
DC
BA treat their employees and their passengers appallingly.
It seems they have lots of money to throw at a dispute, yet cannot even manage to get aircraft of the ground in snow and cold weather.
Is that because most of their staff are flying around pretending to be cabin crew? Is that why other airlines were shown taking off whilst BA grounded their flights? Is that why there was not enough staff in the terminals or was that because they were expected to work for free outside their normal hours, with BA refusing to pay anything extra to the ground staff for them to stay behind after hours to assist their customers?
Having suffered BA at their worst, all I can say is NEVER AGAIN.
Bullied of Heathrow
I was going to post something on here but its soooooo obvious that the story has been hijacked by managers at Waterside. SHAME ON YOU ALL.
Katy G.
Peter, BA have achieved this through bullying, intimidation and imposition which doesn’t require any skill or intelligence.
Barney
DC – you have hit the nail straight on the head…..! At least there is no pretence to treat their customers any differently to their staff…
There is anecdotal evidence that the head of BA’s de-icing operation at T5, LHR, was actually away from his post when the snow hit before Christmas ….. because he was playing at being a volunteer strike-breaking cabin crew!!
You have to understand that these ‘volunteers’ (others have a less charitable view of them…), having done their initial training, have to fly every month in order to keep their licence in operation so even though there is no dispute at the moment full time cabin crew are being kept at home whilst these ‘pretend’ cabin crew fly in their place to stay ready for the next dispute ….. another example of BA short-changing their customers on the aircraft by having under-trained amateurs doing a job they are not fully qualified to do whilst the well trained crew remain at home unused. How does that feel Mr full-fare paying customer???
Many of these ‘volunteers’ having done one or two flights have now decided to withdraw from the volunteer list as they don’t like the long hours and hard work! They have been pointedly told by their managers that they cannot withdraw from the volunteer list and they have been offered financial incentives to remain on the list under the threat of losing their own jobs if they refuse to go on flights.
At least these people are seeing the true face of BA management – knowing that their own jobs have become vulnerable as they face being made redundant if they are not ‘missed’ at their day job …. what a wonderful employer they are so kindly helping out.
Yet again DC Terminal 5 was bereft of staff as BA has put all the ground staff onto a new contract that has less flexibility than the old contract which means that when bad weather hits there are no spare people to call in. BA put out a request on their intranet for volunteers from other areas to go and work in T5 – well, you saw the response to that yourself…. nothing, hardly anyone volunteered and that’s another result you get for screwing a once loyal section of your workforce and many others.
Volunteer to help the same regime that is intent upon screwing its workforce? How out of touch can Walsh and Broughton get?
BA is going down the plughole very quickly under these two fools.
a different Peter
I fly business class long haul a lot and use many airlines. The firm I work for and I are both tight which means being a rate tart looking for the cheapest fares. This means i fly the legacy carriers relatively infrequently as their fares are high. BA do have T5, which is great, and a good ground operation in most countries, but once in the air they are very ordinary with old tired planes and jaded, snotty, superior and unhelpful cabin crew. For me the plusses on the ground are balanced by negatives in the air so i would not pay a penny more for BA business class than i would for business with any other reputable airline.
This dispute is really sad. To an outsider it looks like weak management for years allowed the union to bully it into overpaying until the airline was on its knees and any profit there was went straight to the staff. Strong management was employed with the brief to stop overpaying and make profits for the owners, the shareholders. The union does not like this, despite all other BA staff accepting it, and is desperate to hang onto the pay and conditions they won when management was weak. To do this they are crying foul at every conceivable opportunity and desperately trying to delay the day when their members pay returns to more normal levels.
Nothing wrong with any of that and don’t think any of the above is remotely contentious, suspect some on this forum will not agree….
Personally i think management are going to win, they are playing pretty fair, are doing everything to a plan and have built excellent strike breaking plans so their customers notice each strike less than the one before. To say BA’s customers are unsympathetic to the cabin crew is a considerable understatement.
A brighter union would have accepted that they had an amazing deal and would have worked to stretch things out for the privileged old guard for as long as they could. A brighter union would realise that companies can, in time, push through changes, after proper consultation even if the union has buried its head in the sand. Quite why the Union rejected the last offer, which was a real face saver from a desperate situation, defies belief.