Mark Pritchard on the Unite strike: who is the hypocrite?
Mark Pritchard spoke out in Parliament on Tuesday to attack the Unite union:
“Does the Minister believe that the union leaders behind the BA strike should set an example and forgo some of their £150,000-a-year pay packets? Is not that another example of the arch hypocrisy at the very top of the Unite union?”
Most of the Labourites reading this just mentally yawned. Union leaders are not “behind” the BA strike; thanks to Tory legislation we now have not one but two polls reinforcing the extent to which BASSA members support a strike. Both established an easy majority with room to spare.
There’s also the fairly straightforward issue of Unite leaders criticising BA management’s salaries and bonuses – which have been paid despite the company facing significant losses of hundreds of millions of pounds. Unions aren’t seeking to pare down the wages of their employees to cover a hole in finances caused by management.
Certainly there’s a point to be made that Union leaders are too insulated from their members – I am a firm supporter of the idea of an “average skilled workers’ wage” for MPs and leaders of the labour movement. This is not the point Mark Pritchard, a Conservative MP is going for and…oh, wait? What’s this?
In recent years Mark Pritchard has regularly enjoyed flight upgrades on his frequent Washington trips, up from economy plus to business class. On one occasion BA’s generosity extended to include Mr Pritchard’s wife, who was also granted an upgrade to business class. BA business class flights to Washington cost over £2,000 single. Unite estimates then, that in the past few years Mr Pritchard has benefited to the tune of £15,000 in flights – more than a cabin crew member at Gatwick earns in a year.
Now the source for this a press release from Unite, so the amount is probably less than £15,000 – all I could find in the member’s register of interests was a 2008 flight upgrade worth about £2000, but the point is the same. Still, if one is prepared to level accusations of hypocrisy, especially when the Tories have been making a song and dance about Union money in the Labour Party, one really should make sure one is whiter than white.
Mark Pritchard isn’t.
“There’s also the fairly straightforward issue of Unite leaders criticising BA management’s salaries and bonuses – which have been paid despite the company facing significant losses of hundreds of millions of pounds.”
You are wrong. Senior Management voluntarily worked for a month unpaid last year, including Walsh.
Either you didn’t know that. Another example of your ignorance causing you to talk bollocks.
Or you did. In which case you are not just a hypocrite, but a liar.
Which is it Mr Semple?
I did know it; for Walsh it was something like an 8% pay cut – but he still got paid on his bonus despite the company making a loss of something like £400 million.
Don’t see where I’ve been hypocritical Simon.
As well as the September 2008 one, the register has over the last few years also included upgrades for him and his wife on return trips to Washington DC in July 2006 and October 2009 – see http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=11946.
Is there ever any connection between what you say and the truth, Mr Semple?
Walsh gave up a month’s salary AND his bonus. The third year in a row he has not had a bonus.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/5498590/BA-chief-Willie-Walsh-to-turn-down-bonus-for-third-year-running.html
Do most readers of this blog not realise that you never know the first thing you are talking about? Or don’t they care?
The company is losing money. Too true. Someone has to try and turn it around. Are you suggesting they (he or someone else) do it for nothing?
A bit like the Union leaders maybe?
Simon, most readers on this blog know that a) no one is infallible and b) that when I am wrong I am man enough and have enough integrity to admit to it. In the mean time, if you’re going to continue doing little else but make personal attacks – from contradictory angles – you can take it somewhere else.
For your information, in this case it wasn’t that I didn’t know what I’m talking about it was that I had read, or thought I had read, dud information. At any rate, even minus the bonus and the 8% pay deduction, these bosses are still paid over the odds, when compared to the staff members they want to take wages and – more importantly – job security from.
The whole issue of whether he ‘turned down his bonus is slanted anyway. The established norm is (or should be) that managers got a bonus when they managed well. Mr Walsh has not ‘turned round’ the airline; that is patently obvious. He does not therefore deserve a bonus. To turn that round and suggest he is voluntarily giving up his bonus is a stretch, to say the least.
And of course he got a 5% rise on his basic pay in 2008 anyway (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/2107987/BA-boss-Willie-Walsh-gets-huge-pay-rise.html). Dunno about 2009.
Or in real money,£35,000. Which is a lot, however you look at it.
If you are going to make highly personal attacks on individuals (the senior management of BA) on a public forum you ought to be able to defend your position when it comes under attack, in its turn, Mr Semple.
Or is your view that YOU are allowed to make attacks (based on no evidence) but your calumnies can never be challenged? Would this be what life was like under “socialism?” You can say untruths and inaccuracies and no-one can ever refute them because you are “not infallible”?
It all sounds uncomfortably Stalinist.
I understand that it is uncomfortable for you to have your (rather significant) factual errors pointed out, but I fail to see why either you, or your readers should be afraid of engaging in spirited debate.
The problem I have is that you evidently know SO little about this whole subject (the BA strike), yet feel entitled to offer an opinion on the internet for all to see.
There is another egregious example in this most recent post. Would you please give the evidence for your allegation that BA is proposing a wage cut? Or compulsory redundancies?
The wage cut was in the Unite proposal!
Found it – he got 6% in 2009 on his basic http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article6474165.ece
And of course this is the management that brought about BA being fined BA £270million in 2007 for collusion in fixing the prices of fuel surcharges. That would have been handy to plug the 400 million annual deficit.
Oh yeah, and didn’t Walsh and co louse up the T5 opening in 2008, causing the loss of a further £16 million or so?
PaulinLancs
Walsh worked for a month unpaid last year. As did many senior managers. I know some personally.
Not a single member of cabin crew did. Not one.
They are good at taking. The five star hotels. The allowances. Giving back for the good of the airline? Not so much…
What makes me laugh is how you guys seem to think this bunch of spoilt, overpaid, middle class Daily Mail reading women are in the vanguard of the proletarian revolution.
Simon
Are you quite sure you still want to go on record as describing BA cabin crew as “spoilt, overpaid, middle class Daily Mail reading women”?
Still time to retract/clarify.
Paul
You are right, of course. Actually they resemble nothing so much as a cross between the sans culottes and those heroes who stormed the Winter Palace.
“Aux armes, citoyens!” But first lets make sure hair our hair is looking great and the lippy is on just right…
I wouldn’t be surprised if a deal is struck today, by the way, comrades.
You might both be interested in Simon Calder’s comments from the Independent, below.
My own take on this is that I haven’t got the facts to judge. What is Management asking for, what is the Union offering? I don’t much care what Union leaders are earning but I would like their comments to “be the truth, the whole truth “etc. They do seem to exaggerate hugely. Unions should be expected to react and ask for justification if a reduction in benefits is proposed. Management should try to take their staff with them. But I’m probably being too reasonable for the two of you …
Perhaps all join together to condemn Christopher Chope some more?
**********
Pay? Rosters? Staffing? None of the above is at the heart of the bitter dispute between British Airways and its cabin crew. I can reveal that the conflict is rooted in something more, well, cultural. Not the ideological clash between staff with a tradition of delivering excellent service versus a macho management seemingly bent on cost-cutting, but the popular dairy product made from cultured milk. Yes, this is the first time a union has confronted an airline over the price of yoghurt.
A word of explanation, if I may. As the dispute intensified between BA and the cabin-crew union, Unite, journalists were briefed by both sides. BA let it be known that the airline was ready for a confrontation with the trade union, while Unite established a website aimed at helping the media understand the depth of stewards’ and stewardesses’ anger at management. And it is this briefing (which you can read in full at http://www.bit.ly/BAUnite, to decide whether or not I am being fair) that reveals the extent of BA’s alleged poor treatment of cabin crew. The blunt truth, according to Unite, is that “crew’s meal allowances are taxed and don’t cover the cost of their overseas trips”. The union contends BA sends cabin crew to the ends of the earth but then declines to give them enough cash to be able to eat. Unite cites an example that “One crew member paid £15 for a yoghurt in Tokyo.”
Outrageous. While flying man or woman cannot live by fermented dairy products alone, how can BA possibly short-change crew by despatching them to a place where a simple tub of raspberry, black cherry or natural yoghurt can set them back £15? I had to find out how badly BA let down the long-suffering crew on its daily 747 from Heathrow to the Land of the Rising Strawberry Yoghurt. The answer is that cabin crew on their rest days in Tokyo are paid the equivalent of only 11.3 yoghurts. That means if they spend £15 on a morning yoghurt, only £155 remains for lunch and dinner.
How does BA ever get anyone to work on the Heathrow-Narita flight? Perhaps because crew receive a further 51 yoghurts (£765) in the course of the four-day trip from Heathrow for “additional allowances” on top of their salary. In the unevent that they have any change left, they are allowed to pocket the difference, and need never submit receipts. For comparison, the allowances paid to Virgin Atlantic cabin crew on the same route amount to £230.
No-one disputes the heavy physical toll that working all night on a 12-hour flight can bring; it must make you feel like a strained tzatziki past its sell-by date. Nor would anyone begrudge the cabin crew’s right to proper rest – and refreshment – before the long-haul home. But the unqualified assertion that “crew’s meal allowances are taxed and don’t cover the cost of their overseas trips” is tosh. In reality, meal allowances, particularly in the case of London-Tokyo, are absurdly generous, which is one reason why it is the trip that Heathrow-based cabin crew seek above all others.
The case of the £15 yoghurt has the opposite effect to that intended. It makes the cabin crew look grasping. It makes BA managers look feeble, for happily signing the cheques. And it makes you and me, the travelling public who have been inadvertently subsidising such nonsense for years, look gullible for paying for these £15 yoghurts.
This week I happened to fly on the three biggest airlines serving the UK: BA on Monday, Ryanair on Tuesday and easyJet on Wednesday. All were 90-minute flights crewed with friendly, professional staff. On Ryanair and easyJet, the crew were on “four-sector” days with only 25 minutes between trips. Too short, I reckon; they deserve an hour off. In contrast, BA short-haul crew at Heathrow are entitled to a minimum of two hours and 50 minutes off after landing back at Terminal 5. They can be asked to reduce this by 35 minutes, but only on payment of several £15 yoghurts.
This messy dispute has exposed some unappetising truths about the way BA spends the cash it takes from passengers. Whether you are selling travel or dairy products, making your customers feel foolish can turn sour – and shorten your shelf life.
I notice Simon Calder’s leader had some different sentiments.
Very fair article.
BA management have been intimidated by the threat of strike action (like now) and have let this monster of an entitlement culture grow.
That is why BA cabin staff earn so much more than anyone working in similar jobs elsewhere in the UK. Weak management pandering to their greed.
But then it is easier to concede and not take the hit. How much will this strike cost? A lot more than the mooted savings.
You can pay over the odds when lots of bankers pay five grand for a ticket from Heathrow to JFK. If they stop travelling you can’t get away with it.
A higher cost base than revenue means only one thing over the long term. Bankruptcy. Followed by mass job losses.
It isn’t that complicated. Even Marxist economists should be able to grasp it. Let alone the greedy, selfish, cabin crew.