Last week, I wrote about a plan from British Airways to fire all flight attendants and re-hire many at drastically reduced wages. While British Airways continues to deny this is the plan, cabin staff fears were not unfounded.
What British Airways Told Cabin Staff
A British Airways flight attendant, confirmed by several of her colleagues, posted on Facebook that BA planned to make all cabin staff redundant on June 15th, then would re-hire up to 75% under a single new contract. For senior flight attendants, such action would represent a huge decrease in wages.
At the time, British Airways refused to confirm that was its attention, but also would not deny it:
“We are acting now to protect as many jobs possible. The airline industry is facing the deepest structural change in its history, as well as facing a severely weakened global economy.
“We are committed to consulting openly with our unions and our people as we prepare for a new future.”
British Airways insists that steep job cuts are not the plan, telling the BBC that it simply wants to talk with unions and is “only” considering terminating 12,000 total employees (not just flight attendants).
But on April 28, BA issued a “Section 188” notice to employees that included the following warning:
“We are hoping to reach agreement with you about these proposals, but if that is not possible (and we were unable to implement these proposals by relying on the reasonable changes clause in an employee’s contract), we are proposing to give employees notice of termination and offer them new terms and conditions of employment.”
That looks pretty clear to me…
Section 188 is a provision of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act of 1992 which requires consultation with unions before 20 or more employees are made redundant.
CONCLUSION
Unions are wary of bad intentions, particularly Unite, the union which represents British Airways cabin crew. Unite General Secretary Len McClusky said:
“BA is using this health crisis as cover to impose a long-term plan to slash jobs, pay and conditions. No other employer has threatened to effectively ‘fire and rehire’ its entire workforce.”
It is hard to argue otherwise. Whether or not this is permissible or wise is another question. But fear from BA cabin staff seem very justified to me.
image: British Airways
Ok….so why is this a bad thing?
Governments don’t let us travel.
Airlines cut staff to stay in business.
Sounds smart to me, unless I’m missing something?
Sadly George you miss the point
BA old contract cabin staff are well overpaid. They need to get used to correct pay for the job as mixed crew do who also work for BA.
So if a person goes to work , does a good job and then finds they are going to lose their job. Maybe offered the same position but on lesser terms. Tell me George would you think yeah this is smart. This will pay the bills . Sadly this is not the country I once knew. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but hey I hope it never happens to you.
BA or rather Wee Willie’s gripe is that there are still a number of legacy cabin crew at BA from before privitisation and he wants rid of them or at the very least on much reduced terms and conditions. He also argues that they were inherited and they need to get in line with newly recruited crews. These highly experienced crew are the best BA have to offer in the main and one of the very few reasons left for flying with them.
However, we must all accept that times have moved on and BA need to change but it shouldn’t just be the cabin crew who are looked at in this way to reduce costs.
When BA was privitised it also inherited alongside the crew all the LHR slots it held at no charge at all, that is still a significant percentage of their current holding and about 45% of the total LHR slots available.
Let them do as they wish with the legacy crew on the condition that they now pay out the market rate for those 45% of slots to the UK treasury who would be the original owners before they were gifted to BA.
They cannot play just be rules that suit them.
The entire British Empire was built upon the principle of playing only by the rules that suited them. Why change now?
I totally agree George, blame the government, not BA. An employees personal circumstances are not the company’s problem. BA are doing all they can to save as many jobs as possible. The unions are doing their best to destroy the company.
I think you mean “wary” not “weary” in your conclusion. Similar sounding words, different meanings
B A cabin crew . Seem to have no enthusiasm in there jobs .get you fed and watered .then disappear to Galley
Its become a low budget airline
Gone down hillcompared to it’s competereds
BA is a part of IAG S.A., so the EU should consider not giving this company any finacial support for this immoral and inhuman actions. The British Gov.should also consider not helping BA. It is a company in which sensible people should not be spending on!
Unfortunately I totally started avoiding flying BA many years ago due to 2 factors:-
1: Tired, grubbly business class cabins
2; The ‘aloof’ attitude of the ‘older’ (female) cabin crew, who gave the distinct impression that you were to be grateful they were serving you, rather than the otherway around!
Finnair (my favourite) staff, whilst also generally older have a perfect demeanour.
Your article says 12000 cabin crew to be made redundant, its 12000 staff across all areas, not just cabin crew & pilots work for BA.
The 6000 “Mixed Fleet” cabin crew already have drawn into their contract that they can be laid off indefinitely so BA has already made a provision for this type of eventuality!
There is no need therefore for any redundancies net alone change of contracts.
What BA are doing is wrong no one should lose their job/position for any reason. Nor should BA present their staff with such demeaning contracts. How about Willie Walsh and all the other management team take a huge paycut on their salaries and also for the next 5 to 10 years not to pay out any dividends to the shareholders.
Paul you’re right what BA is doing to its workers is madness as I see it not anyone’s fault this virus came about so called covid 19 and using this as an excuse to get rid off workers all their cabin crews are hard workers doing the best they can to keep passengers happy with very long hours if any thing it should start from the top down if you need to save money. Joseph
Totally agree with comments from Mr Paul Fernando as we’re all proud and happy with BA.