But is your job as demanding or as important as cabin crew, do your daily actions and responsibilities affect the lives of every person you come into contact with?
That’s a slightly naive view of life. Everybody has a role to play in society, and whilst in my job I may never have to evacuate an aircraft in an emergency I can confirm that (luckily) most cabin crew can spend a whole career not having to do that either. I’d like to to think when I carry out certain tasks, such as advising on multi-billion pound airport purchases, that this is slightly more challenging than asking “chicken or beef”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first to have respect for good quality customer service, but I do think you’ve got slightly carried away.
Question…. Has management taken any cuts?
Reduced salary?
Less perks?
What always amazes me across the world is how CEOs never reduce their salarys, pay themselves bonus’s when the compnay is going broke, get millions in a payout when they leave and all because they sacks 1000s.
Even worse is when people support the CEOs, (mostly cause they are shareholders, therefor those scum workers better keep going on less and less wages to keep me shares up)… Sorry but I havent yet seen a CEO of any large company worth his salary or do any good deeds in the name of the company and its workers in a very long time.
Fancy wanting more money and better conditions for its workers… how dare they!
I’m not certain that you understand the issues here. BA management, including WW have taken huge hits financially, including pay freezes, and WW also gave up a month’s salary last year. The head count at Waterside has been culled dramatically in recent years, and I mean DRAMATICALLY. Furthermore, the pilots and ground crew at Heathrow are un uproar about this, they’ve accepted changes to their pay and conditions for the good of the company and many see the cabin crew as overpaid and underworked, its no wonder they have managed to find volunteers to train as cabin crew for the event of a strike. Much to the disgust of the Cabin Crew’s union, Unite, BALPA (the pilot’s union) won’t publicly support them, and for good reason!
Through this dispute they want to impose pay freezes, new conditions for new staff, some new onboard structural changes, and promotional changes. Take these one by one…
Pay freezes, well they can join the rest of the UK in accepting these as far as I’m concerned! I didn’t get a payrise last year, and unlikely to get one this year. I work in the aviation industry and have had to take a hit that many others have.
New conditions for new staff: Well I don’t see the concern here, nobody that currently works for BA will be affected by whether or not a new employee chooses to accept a job offer made to them. FURTHERMORE, BA are still promising market rate PLUS 10% for new employees, so they’ll still be on market leading salaries, it’s just they won’t be on double what other airlines offer, as the current top BA cabin crew are.
Onboard structural changes: So on a long haul flight the purser will now have to serve food and drinks, rather than simply manage the team on board that do normally. This will mean a reduction of 1 member of onboard crew, though as I understand it, no job cuts per-se, and over time this reduction will be felt through the natural disposal of staff (i.e. those that retire and leave through choice). This will not only bring the airline in line with other airlines, but will also bring the Heathrow operation in line with BA’s Gatwick long haul contracts which have been in force for a number of years, and where funnily enough, the staff cope just fine with it.
Promotional changes: Including being promoted on merit, not time-served (well fancy that eh, goodness what a remarkable concept!), and less variance in the structure betweent he top and bottom of the cabin crew pile. This will only affect future promotions, so nobody will loose their current conditions.
I notice that our usual contributing member of BA cabin crew hasn’t said anything. I think I’ve been para-phrasing and may have missed something out, so I am happy to stand corrected on any points.
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