BA DOES IT AGAIN!!!!!

SHARE

 

SHARE

BA slashes senior crew pay

Wage cuts despite record profits

Hajera Blagg, Thursday, October 15th, 2015

In the time it takes most of us to clean our teeth, BA cabin crew last month deftly evacuated a burning plane carrying more than 150 passengers.

It was an emergency that – in one instant – could have very well turned into a fatal disaster.
On Monday (October 12), ITV interviewed the pilot of the BA 2276 flight to Gatwick from Las Vegas, hailing him a hero.

The pilot, Chris Henkey, was commandeering his penultimate flight before retiring, when he decided in a split second to abort take off as the plane burst into flames.

British Airways saluted Henkey’s heroism by rewarding him with an all-expenses paid trip to Barbados, after he missed piloting his last flight to the Caribbean island.

In response to being nominated for the Pride of Reading award, Henkey said, “It was a real team effort on board the flight and all the pilots and cabin crew played their part. I only had a fraction of a role in a much bigger picture.”

The “much bigger picture” Henkey speaks of touches on the crucial role cabin crew and their managers play during an emergency.

As the BA plane caught fire, cabin crew manager Denise Hunter spearheaded an evacuation that took less than five minutes. She was one of the last people to alight from the plane and broke her wrist in the process.

One BA employee who asked not to be named highlighted the level of skill it takes to manage an evacuation.

“When first starting the job, cabin crew undertake six weeks of intensive training,” she said. “Afterwards, they have to do emergency safety training every year.

“Cabin crew managers are especially critical during an emergency, because cabin crew, who are busy calming and directing passengers while trying to stay calm themselves, look for leadership when they’re under so much pressure.”

But Denise Hunter, who is still off sick along with the rest of the cabin crew after injuries sustained from the flight, is not making headlines as a hero, despite the life-saving role she played.

In fact, the situation is very much the opposite.

She and other highly skilled Gatwick-based cabin crew managers, many of whom have been working for decades, may in a matter of weeks see their pay slashed by almost 30 per cent from a salary of up to £33,000 down to £24,000 – well below the national average.

The pay cut, which in the worst cases will amount to more than £9,000 a year, will be doled out as cabin managers are given new titles – “customer service managers”.

The anonymous BA worker who will be affected by the changes says the role name change is being used to justify the pay cuts.

Same job, less pay

“Our duties will stay exactly the same – so we will essentially be doing the same job but for much less pay,” she explained.

She noted that British Airways maintains an agreement that protects workers’ basic pay after they’ve been redeployed into lower paying roles – but in this instance BA has applied the agreement disingenuously.

“What they’re doing is trying to apply an agreement from 2012 that Unite members unanimously rejected instead of the agreement in place currently, which is supposed to protect basic pay for life,” she said. “The agreement that they are wrongly applying essentially freezes our pay from this year and only guarantees a personal pay differential for four years.”

“This vastly compounds our losses over the years, causing permanent financial loss for all of those affected by the pay cuts,” she explained.

Another BA worker who will be affected by the changes wrote in a new blog that details the harrowing dispute how she will be personally hit by the pay cuts.

“My life and future are in [BA’s] hands and they don’t care. I have a young child and I’m the only income in my house. My salary reduction will mean that I won’t be able to afford my mortgage and my car so I’m in great danger of losing them both.

Fears

“My fears are eating me alive,” she added. [And it] means nothing to them.”

British Airways’ line is that the move is necessary to keep its operations “sustainable”.

But the company reported record profits last year and is presided over by a chief executive who is expected to take home £6.4m in pay and perks.

It was revealed this year that Willie Walsh, chief executive of IAG, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, earns 147 times the average British Airways employee.

In early September, BA management, “held a gun to our heads”, noted the BA worker UNITElive spoke to.

They were told to either accept the pay, terms and conditions of their new roles – or be sacked.

The cabin crew managers tried to protest the changes, but at the end of September, British Airways issued workers a letter threatening that any further protests will be taken as a rejection of their offer and would lead to their termination.

Still, Unite members will not go down without a fight – a consultative ballot for industrial action opened earlier this month and closes today at 5pm.

Stay tuned on UniteLive as the results from the ballot are announced, and keep up to date on the latest in the dispute at the BeFairBA blog here.