Friday 27 June 2014
Sunday 22 June 2014
here we go again!!!!!
British Airways cabin crew 'ready to strike' over pay claim
95% who voted in BA's mixed fleet crew – where basic pay is believed to be £12,000 – say they would strike
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British Airways employees are said to be furious that Willie Walsh, boss of parent group IAG, earned £5m in 2013. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
British Airways is facing the threat of renewed strikes after cabin crew said they were prepared to take industrial action after their pay claims were rebuffed.
In a consultative ballot last week among members of the mixed fleet, 95% of crew who voted said they would go on strike. About a third of the eligible crew voted in the ballot, taken to gauge feeling in a fleet which unionised rapidly under Unite in 2012.
The mixed fleet is a predominantly younger crew, employed under inferior terms and conditions to pre-existing crew. The fleet was set up in 2010 during the last wave of bitter industrial action at the airline, when cost-cutting led to 22 days of walkouts.
Willie Walsh, the then BA boss and now chief executive of parent company IAG, argued that traditional airlines needed to cut costs to survive, and has since pushed through thousands of job losses and salary cuts at BA's sister airline Iberia in Spain.
But the new BA recruits have been angered by schedules and salaries that see them earning less than counterparts at low-cost competitors easyJet and Ryanair.
Unions claim many BA cabin crew are now reliant on working tax credits to supplement basic salaries, believed to be a little over £12,000 a year, though the airline says earnings should reach around £20,000 with full-flying rosters.
BA has offered a pay rise in line with inflation to other cabin crew on pre-2010 contracts, who work exclusively either long-haul or short-haul in the worldwide or European fleets.
The new flexible crew had been hoping to close the wage gap with their better-paid colleagues and counterparts, but have made no progress.
Anger has been further stirred among employees by news that Walsh earned £5m in 2013, a pay rise of 400% on the previous year, while BA boss Keith Williams was paid £3m.
A BA spokesman told the Guardian: "Our cabin crew positions attract a high level of applicants due to the competitive package offered, our extensive route network and promotional opportunities. We are currently conducting pay talks with all parts of the airline and any talk of industrial action by one of four cabin crew groups is completely speculative."
Tuesday 3 June 2014
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