BA trains strike crew
Posted by BritishAirwaysStrike | Posted in Strike News | Posted on 28-02-2010
Tags: emergencies, maintenance, street
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Friends of the Earth condemns ‘ghost’ flights as walkout loomsBritish Airways is training strike-breaking cabin crew on trial flights with their colleagues standing in for passengers, as the airline prepares for a threatened walkout next month.Special trips from Heathrow to Cardiff and Glasgow are being used to allow replacement crews to practise in the air. Cabin crew are normally trained on scheduled services with paying customers but, given the limited time available, the emergency crews are having to make do with role-playing colleagues.Friends of the Earth described BA’s decision to put on the extra flights as shocking. BA said: “It is an opportunity for the volunteer crew to experience a flight and how to act as a team.”Routine trips to BA’s Cardiff and Glasgow engineering bases for aircraft maintenance are doubling up as training flights, but the airline is also running journeys solely for training purposes. “There will be passengers on board but they will be using role-playing scenarios,” the airline said.In a drive to recruit cabin crew from its 25,000-strong ground staff, BA has told staff with no flying experience that they could be in the air after 21 days of instruction at its Heathrow crew school. The training is taking place despite continuing talks between BA and the Unite trade union to resolve a dispute over staffing cuts on flights.The assistant general secretary of Unite, Len McCluskey, warned that a 260-mile round trip to the Welsh capital was no substitute for dealing with the type of emergencies that could occur on long-haul flights, including heart attacks, fainting and food poisoning.He said: “Short-hop stunts are no preparation for long-haul emergencies, and passengers understand that. The only BA brand worth preserving is one staffed by the skilled and dedicated professional cabin crew that management have been harassing.”BA said all volunteer cabin crew would be trained to meet CAA safety standards. The airline declined to reveal how many volunteers it had assembled ahead of strikes that could begin as soon as next week. Unite claims that the airline can train no more than a few hundred staff barely enough to operate a few routes for an airline that operates 650 flights per day with 12,000 cabin crew.Unite has held back from setting strike dates as it awaits the outcome of peace talks, but it has secured a mandate for a walkout after 81% of cabin crew backed action with 22 March the last possible date that industrial action can begin.The attempt to recruit a shadow workforce, including pilots, is one of the reasons why members of Bassa, Unite’s cabin crew branch, are pushing for a strike lasting longer than 10 days.BA is believed to have launched the recruitment drive after Unite tried to stage a 12-day strike last Christmas. That action was defeated by an injunction.The auxiliary crew drew considerable criticism at a Bassa meeting in Kempton last week. Richard Dyer, transport expert from Friends of the Earth, said: “This is shocking news. Flying is one of the most polluting ways to travel. One flight significantly increases a person’s contribution to climate change.”Using ghost flights means the climate footprint of these trainees will be enormous. British Airways has once again shown it does not take its environmental responsibilities seriously.”One crew member, Liz, who attended the meeting, said: “I used to be one of those sad people who was so proud to work for BA that I put my uniform on before my shift began so I could go show it off in the supermarket and on the streets. Now I carry a change of clothes and put my uniform on at the last minute because BA has given out such inaccurate information about why cabin crew want to strike that non-crew colleagues and members of the public now hate us.”"BA has got everyone believing cabin crew are deliberately working to bring down the company out of sheer greed and unreasonableness. The public have absorbed the anti-crew message the management is peddling too: I was spat at in the street the other day by a member of the public.”Unite has circulated a list of on-board dilemmas encountered by 14 cabin crew over a combined 275 years of flying, which includes: seven deaths on board; seven heart attacks; and 29 fainting fits.British AirwaysAir transportTrade unionsDan MilmoAmelia Hill Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
