Exactly.

Smug posturing parading as “I share your pain” sympathy.

This shameless attempt at pretending to suffer in the same way as the rest of BA’s workforce is nothing more than a transparent sham. I hope they all tell him to get stuffed.

While the sentiment is fine, we shouldn’t forget that a lot of companies are driven into bankruptcy not because of a salary of a dozen or so bosses, no matter how egregious – but because of the salaries of the thousands of the rest of the workforce.

BA staff are paid significantly higher wages than the industry average, without any noticeable increase in productivity.

The unions and staff have to recognise that if they want to keep their high wages, then there will be a risk to the firm as a whole.

Bankrupt companies have a very small workforce – and I never really understand why unions think that is a good thing.

#2

If there really is a risk of bankruptcy, workers might well be willing to agree to do more unpaid work (although in that case, management really should be making more of an effort than this tiny gesture of a small cut to a huge executive salary, and it’s worth pointing out that if BA is like most companies the workers probably already do significant unpaid overtime). But presenting it as “voluntary” is disingenuous at best.

If cuts to pay (which is essentially what this is) are the only way to avoid bankruptcy (which is not at all clear in this case) then they should be negotiated properly with workers themselves. There are other things management could give up in return – for example giving a greater say in the way the company is run to workers, or a guarantee that when times are better workers’ pay should rise at the same rate as executive pay.

I’m waiting for the day bosses agree to reduce their pay by 50% or more in times of deep crisis.

PLUS:
I bet that’s gonna be wonderful for staff morale, motivation and safety too.

Re-nationalise BA.

It always seems to be the workers fault things go belly up.

Bloody Proles, wanting a decent wage.

Maybe if the bosses weren’t paid such ridiculous salaries and the shareholders weren’t so greedy, then maybe, just maybe…

Plus, I said it elsewhere and I repeat it here.

We all know the thousands of companies that hold their monthly or annual meeting in exotic places that cost zillions, organising “motivational” weekend sessions in luxury hotels, spa, you name it, paying thousands for celebrity guests to give a 20 minute cliched speech, booking entertainment for the evening as well as luxury dinners.

These cost the equivalent of annual wages to entire departments.

A recent example was Barclays weekend motivational sessions organised somewhere supermega expensive on Lake Como. Can’t remember how much the papres said it cost but it was obscene.

My point is that there are many many ways to cut expenses, to make savings, to avoid wasting money. However, it seems to me that targeting staff is always seen as fair game – with the constant bogeyman of redundancies being the sharpest of tools.

[6] You don’t get it, do you? The workforce are a factor of production, just like the aircraft and the slots BA’s bought to land them in. Factors of production don’t create wealth, entrepreneurs do that. If there were any decency in the world the staff would give up at least a month’s pay a year to Walsh and Williams because they are the only people adding value to the outfit. Let’s face it, BA would still need people in their posts even if all the other jobs were filled by robots (as they surely will be just as soon as the geeks build robots clever enough).

“are the only people adding value to the outfit.”

They’re not really adding much value if they’re shitting it about bankruptcy, are they?

@mike

If there were any decency in the world the staff would give up at least a month’s pay a year to Walsh and Williams because they are the only people adding value to the outfit. Let’s face it, BA would still need people in their posts even if all the other jobs were filled by robots (as they surely will be just as soon as the geeks build robots clever enough).

I wouldn’t be so sure. Have you ever seen Terminator? I’m sure a robot Willie Walsh could be built.

On the original piece – it’s fairly clear reading BA’s statement that they’re expecting senior manager-y types who’re jockeying for promotion to work for free, and normal staff to take unpaid sabbaticals.

@3 it’s unlikely most BA staff do much unpaid overtime, given the regulated nature of the industry (ie it’d be illegal, in an ‘enforced and policed by the CAA’ way, for cabin or air crew to work over their paid hours).

@5 what, so the median taxpayer can subsidise those wealthy enough to travel on long-haul airlines? Liberal-tacular (and was there ever a more epic wealth transfer to the rich than Concorde…?)

@9 I think Mike was being sarky. Think it’ll be a while before robots can do the work of proper aircrew, though: compare the proper, trained, well-paid union captain who managed to land his plane in the Hudson without killing anyone, with the overworked franchised monkeys on bus driver wages who managed to kill 50 people the same month through sheer cluelessness…

Bring back Concorde – it was great – 3 and a half hours to NYC – fantastic.

But it was indeed a perfect example of state waste.

There’s an obvious solution: sell off some slots at Heathrow. BA’s silly block-anyone-else-from-getting-in-there strategy only inflates their own costs and distorts the market. They could even make cuts look like expansion, simply by diverting Heathrow flights to Gatwick, Birmingham, Southampton, and Cardiff.

No5 – agree 100%.

But as soon as it was re-nationalised do as No13 says (you forgot Manchester) – sell it off once all that has been done.

Work for free at a company like BA – FFS!

@13/14, but the point of BA *is* its Heathrow slots – changing planes at T5 is one of the least painful ways to make an international connection that there is (it’s infinitely better than Schiphol or Charles de Gaulle. I’ve not tried Dubai, although it’s supposed to be nice).

If it breaks that change-at-Heathrow model, it can’t fill its international flights (which would annoy me, as I like being able to fly to wherever I need to fly direct from London) and its short-haul flights become direct competitors to budget airlines (but with a traditional airline cost base) instead of extensions of international routes.

What the government *should* do is confiscate all non-EU airlines’ LHR slots, and then auction them for cash. Net result: public finances improved; vanity project airlines that nobody sane would ever choose to use like Air India, Garuda, Aeroflot etc are relegated to Gatwick; and there are more slots for decent airlines with money like Emirates, Singapore, Cathay, Etihad, etc.

John, whereas I almost agree fully with you – what has that got to do with a guy who is getting $100,000 a month asking hard up workers to not get paid for a month? If is is a saving to BA – all well and good. But as BA is in the flight business they should do business accordingly.

If they go bust they go bust – another company will take their place.

He like many other bosses are using this recession for their own benefit and are saying that the workforce has to take cuts – and then they give themselves a bonus for that.

It is now, in this recession, where there should be a mass walkout, general strike, or a mass quitting of jobs – whatever. Everyone in the UK who has a penny of debt should file for bankruptcy. Could you imagine how scared the banks would become? How companies would be terrified?

For 6 years the CC companies couldn’t give anyone credit?

If the people realised how much power they have right now it would be frightening to companies and business – but they don’t and business still calls the shots.

If BA want to borrow workers pay – they should hand over a certain amount of the company to those workers.

This is a pure scare tactic by BA in getting workers to take a pay cut later – a massive one, and you get bet your bottom dollar the management will not take a cut. Especially those who are on the board.

Asking workers to work for a month for free is a sign of weakness by the management – but the unions are too weak to act on it.