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BA Strike injunction

 
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Cherskiy



Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 3701
Location: near Amble, Northumberland

PostPosted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:21 am    Post subject: BA Strike injunction Reply with quote

Seems Unite and BASSA (the association for steward/esses) didn't really do everything necessary. From an "insider" on a crew forum:

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

It seems it was your own Bassa reps that screwed this one up!

All this guff from Derek Simpson saying they had done everything they could to comply with "every dot and comma" - total and utter bull! And he was sat there in court listening to the judgement, maybe he didn't understand the bit where the judge was quite clear that they had in no way at all done all that was reasonably practicable, and that there was no evidence to suggest that.

Miss Malone got lots of special mentions, and her "legally flawed" forum post, that she took a whole 3 mins to come up with has totally ruined BASSAs chances. Even the judge apparently mentioned several times in her summing up.

Steve Turners witness statement was 'called in to question' when emails with totally conflicting evidence was submitted showing that the Bassa reps knew the numbers of people leaving under VR. Brilliant.

Mr Marley also had a starring role, with his witness statement Unite produced for their defence being leapt upon with glee by the BA QC, as they were trying to argue they didnt understand the spreadsheet that BA had given them to show people leaving. In his own statement, Marley said that he had worked with the spreadsheets before when working in HR when off sick, and it was 'easy to track crew' that were leaving. Genius.

Literally all it would have taken for Bassa to have won, and be going out on strike in a few days, is for them to send a text out saying "dont vote if you are leaving on VR" , send out 1 email, put one post on the forum, or include a note on the ballot paper. That is it, all that needed to be done. Even after BA notified them that there was a problem, they could have sorted it, and been shown to be reasonable in court.

To be fair to Hendy QC, there was not much he could do, because BASSAs bungling reps had totally scuppered their own action, and the best bit is, there was no need. If they thought crew would support them so much, as they did it turns out, there was no need to try and get 800 extra votes from VR. No one knows why they didn't try and get the message out for these people not to vote. Far from being a Catch22, they would have been shown to be reasonable.

BASSA reps have a lot of questions to answer, especially Liz Malone, who seems to have done the most to destroy BASSA credibility.

Maybe she was jet-lagged when she posted that forum reply......


Liz Malone was the rep for BASSA (lives in LA, hasn't worked for a year apparently but still allegedly draws a £50K salary) who apparently posted a telling line on the BASSA crew forum - "if you're still working for the company on the day of the ballot, still vote anyway" or words to that effect.

Seems all Derek Simpson could do outside the High Court yesterday was bleat about how unfair it all was. Diddums. Rolling Eyes
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Minx



Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 4088
Location: France/Spain/Peterborough/Tenerife

PostPosted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A classic case of being out-manouevered! Now all those cabin crew who have been villified by irate passengers have been through it all for nothing, not to mention destroying their own credibility.

On our flight from Singapore to LHR, we were approached by one of these highly paid (55K) cabin crew service directors who introduced herself and said "Hi, and how are you both today?" "Very well, thank you" we said.

"Good" she said, looked swiftly round the cabin and then said "Hi, I'm your cabin crew service director. How are you both today?" Duh!

When I mentioned to her that there was an intermittent and quite highly pitched tuning kind of noise coming from above my head she said it had been noticed on the outward flight but she would "mention it to the boys" again. It was quite safe however, just a noise from the wing, she said.

One highly reassured nervous flyer tossed and turned all night. Shocked
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Minx

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mark occomore



Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 9955
Location: UK

PostPosted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Most of the votes don't work for the company anymore. Unite union could be dead in the water carrying on like that.
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Minx



Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 4088
Location: France/Spain/Peterborough/Tenerife

PostPosted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

mark occomore wrote:
Most of the votes don't work for the company anymore. Unite union could be dead in the water carrying on like that.


It wasn't "most of the vote(r)s", Mark. The number included erroneously wasn't even significant enough to have affected the outcome. Just carelessness on the part of the Union.
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Minx

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mark occomore



Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 9955
Location: UK

PostPosted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The country still has the Post Office dispute to contend. They are also supposed to be ballotting members in the new year.

Back to BA strike. I can't see the union will get as many members who are still working for the company to vote next time|? Expecially if they propose to strike for 12 days. BA are supposed to be investing in another airline in 2010, plus they have a blackhole for their pension scheme. It doesn't look a very Happy New Year for Willie Walsh and BA.
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Cherskiy



Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 3701
Location: near Amble, Northumberland

PostPosted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

An unknown number of BASSA members have cancelled their memberships in disgust at being led down the garden path by their reps. BASSA have apparently been spewing out lots of rhetoric recently but facts were allegedly few and far between (they originally claimed they were offering £175M worth of savings to BA when it was really calculated as £54M), whilst others have been horrified to find that their yes vote was hijacked by the union to become a "12 Days of Christmas" strike - most seemingly believed it would be a series of 3-day stoppages. A post on the BASSA forum also apparently suggests that members who find colleagues (i.e. flight crew) with a differing point of view report them for harrassment - even when anyone prior to the ballot who had put forward reasons for voting "no" on said forum was literally shouted down and berated!

Unite's whinges that they were forced to plan the strike for Christmas aren't apparently true - they could have started the 12 days as late as 7th January under the law but of course that wouldn't have garnered the headlines and media attention their eventual decision did - and backfired on them. The response to the ballot shown released onto Youtube (and then to the national media) showed the "yes" voters in a pretty bad light too.

BA's cabin crew that voted "yes" when they are not under threat of losing their jobs and earn nearly twice as much as Virgin staff should remember that being "Britain's Favourite Airline" doesn't mean that the company is fireproof in a recession.
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Briant



Joined: 02 Jun 2007
Posts: 964
Location: Liverpool England UK

PostPosted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was surprised how poorly paid Virgin staff are compared to BA. Not much for all the stress that regularly flying as a career must be. Rolling Eyes
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