BA has just announced losses of £600 million to add to last year’s losses of £400 million and at the moment of their greatest need to pull together to secure their futures the cabin crew via their union, Unite decide to go on strike to “protect” members’ interests. Apparently BA has lots of cash and can sustain these losses in the short term but no business can keep on losing money forever. Unless they return to profitability they will eventually collapse.
How can sane people behave like this? Surely managers and staff should be pulling together and fighting for their livelihoods?
As a consumer imagine that you are booking a flight. There are two choices of carrier – BA and one other. Which would you choose? In the long term I cannot imagine that this strike will do anything other than damage BA for shareholders and staff alike.
Can somebody please explain what this is all about?
By Martin Blain
Sales Director
The whole thing seems rather crazy to me too. In the current climate, you would think that people would be grateful to be employed at all considering that there are so many out there that are struggling. The more that the staff strike, the more money the company looses and which in turn increases the likelihood that they will need to cut one of their biggest outgoings – staff wages and benefits. And all of this because they can’t sit down, negotiate and agree like adults and business people. It’s a shame that such a high profile icon of Britain to the rest of the world is so obviously struggling.
I agree with Sara’s comment above. There comes a time when you have to be grateful about what you have got, are lucky to even have a job in the current climate and stop winging. Yes, we all need to earn a certain wage to sustain a decent, standard of living, decent working conditions etc and we all need to pay the gas bill and the council tax at the end of the day, but it does make me angry that when people all around me who are being made redundant through no fault of their own, that some BA staff are winging about benefits, work patterns etc. I think a reality check is in store here and a change of attitude wouldn’t go amiss.