The BA strike

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In a just world, the scumbag Willie Walsh would be sacked by the shareholders. But British Airways has this moronic tradition of macho management and attempted union-busting. It has never done it any good, it has repeatedly led to disastrous strikes as well as other ruinous developments (such as the disaster of the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5, which was botched because nobody dared tell management that they were making a mess of it), but they cannot seem to see through it. It's always someone else's fault. Well, in this case the fault is entirely management's, and I hope they bloody well pay for it.

Comments

[panobjecticon.livejournal.com]

why angry?

'the scumbag Willie Walsh'
huh? that's a bit silly.

'would be sacked by the shareholders.'
and a little excessive, don't you think? much better to get him to be a nicer, fluffier chappie and a little more sensible: foregoing a month of his own salary wasn't convincing at all, i reckon.

'But British Airways has this moronic tradition of macho management and attempted union-busting. It has never done it any good, it has repeatedly led to disastrous strikes as well as other ruinous developments'
umm they've not had many, maybe a couple or three since privatisation and i believe it wasn't exactly known for serious industrial relations problems beforehand this is despite shedding quite large numbers of staff - in the thousands. but apparently it's very costly when they do strike.

'such as the disaster of the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5, which was botched because nobody dared tell management that they were making a mess of it'
have you any evidence for this and that it was a ba issue rather than baa please?

'in this case the fault is entirely management's'
certainly appears that way. 90% of affected staff voted to strike and it appeared they were pretty vociferous when it was anounced. that really does say quite a lot about the handling of the issues and their presentation by ba to them. there's been a lot of rhetoric from walsh about the union, rather than the staff who voted: trying to destroy ba; harking back to the 60's or 70's; offers on and off tables, saying an amount needed to be saved and then rejecting a better offer from the union on the grounds that staff would lose out, only to withdraw that offer and return with an even worse one to compensate. it seems just silly really. imo the union actually seem to have done a decent job of presenting their reasonability, the media would rather everyone be angry about it though, i think. i can't begin to imagine why on earth they've tried to involve international unions though..

the pilots' settlement involved compensation with shares iirc. but i can't help thinking this more about trying to somehow distract attention from expected ba losses this year.

anyway, it's nice to see the cabin crews getting some support but really you ought to be careful. i understand they have a rather large fleet of black transits located in their dirty tricks departments at several airports not too far from you - apparently, they're quite good too!;-)

[panobjecticon.livejournal.com]

btw i don't think that by giving the length of advance notices and allowing ba room to manouveur, with volunteers and charters, is necessarily the best way of going about it.