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”
Greg
RT @leftfootfwd: The BA cabin crew dispute: The view from the shop floor: http://bit.ly/gHNsM8
Roger
First of all a great thank you to Adam to put his point so accurately about the life of a shorthaul crew at BA…I am also a short haul crew and have been at BA for the best part of my life i.e 33 years….I am now well into the end of my carreer with BA…but something strikes me very oddly with Nick Howes statement…yes customers do pay our wages..we were/are the envy of the airline industry..but Mr.Howes isnt that so for every jobs on earth including yours..do your customers/clients/employers pay your wages..someone is always paying someone for something..Mr.howes..would you for example work for free if your employer asked you to????…and I am sure that you are a dedicated and loyal employee…British Airways asked me to do so ….whilst the CEO of BA did work for free for one month..he could indeed afford do so…I could certainly not even on my current alledgedly wages..as everyone else , we have COMMITMENTS being financial or else..and in the current economics climate of the UK..noboby can afford cuts BA wants to IMPOSE on its workforce….
Roger
Peter you must be either a very disgruntled BA passenger or and my guess is wild..a BA manager or a reject from BA Cabin Crew recruitment process..may be also a closeted wannabe Cabin Crew for guess who BA….
Roger
and “M” your comments suggests you are a BA manager..you know too much or too little to be truthfull
Nick Howes
Poppy – I have been a registered nurse for 34 years, albeit employed in the RN for most of that time, but I don’t need any lectures on low pay and long hours. I don’t consider myself right-wing and I am certainly not rich. I understand that cabin crew feel hard-done-by, but I have yet to see any cabin crew put up in shoddy accommodation when flying, or left to make their own way from airport to accommodation at their own expense or wait to be processed on arrival, so there has to be a bit of understanding of an alternative point of view.