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...a blog by Richard Flowers

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Day 3273: Fly My Pretties!

Thursday:


A million people will be glad to hear that the planned "Twelve Days of Christmas" strike by British Airways' cabin crews has been cancelled on a technicality.

Agreeing to BA's injunction, Mrs Justice Cox added:

"At Christmas too! What did you THINK you were doing?!"

…before jumping on a flight to Bermuda.

The "Untie" Union, who are responsible (or IRresponsible) for the Christmas strike threat, called this "a disgrace to democracy", to which one might not unreasonably reply: if you didn't want to disgrace democracy, you shouldn't have messed up the ballots in the first place, should you!

Yet with the news that another airline has gone BUST and when even market cheapo Ryanair is cancelling its order for more aeroplanes, does it not seem like a VERY ODD time for the Union to be making it HARDER for British Airways to stay aloft? Is this not another case – like the Post Office union going postal – of killing off the hand that feeds you?

Yes, yes, fair enough, the Union wants to protect the rights and salaries of its members, but they seem to be going about it in a totally short-sighted way.

British Airways is UNCOMPETITIVE because it costs more for them to fly their aeroplanes around than it does for other airlines. One way that it costs more is that they pay their cabin crews MORE than other airlines – according to the BBC, the average salary for a BA crewmember is £18,000 compared to a crewmember on Virgin getting £15,500.

Surely the Untie people ought to be aiming to improve the wages of the VIRGIN cabin crews, while ACCEPTING the British Airways pay FREEZE. That would make BA more competitive, protecting salaries AND jobs.

Instead, the union is making life more difficult for the BETTER employer. Isn't that just, pardon my pun, plane bonkers?



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