On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 00:13:52 +0100, Peter Parry
wrote:

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 23:29:15 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:

On Sat, 13 Aug 2005 23:00:25 +0100, Peter Parry
wrote:

They are all related, a point that passed the dimwits at BA by by a
very wide margin.

It's a customer/supplier relationship, with BA being the customer of
the catering firm - separate companies.

BA used to own the catering company and off loaded it (complete with
TUPE) to another firm, that firm in turn off loaded it (at a nice
profit) to the current owners who of course had to recover the price
they had paid for it. At the same time BA were screwing the company
into the ground on price as BA accounted for well over half their UK
turnover.

Then more fool the catering firm for being so reliant on one customer.
They should have actively sought other customers and/or restructured
their business a long time previously.


Therefore what possible
relevance does the employment terms and conditions of the caterer's
staff have to the employees of their customer? That's a nonsense.

The point all the bozos with MBA's missed was that at Heathrow whole
families work there and have for years. The catering staff were
wives, cousins, sisters etc of the baggage handlers and when they
went on strike they didn't find it too difficult to persuade other
family members to join in.

BA have so little idea about, or interest in, who works for them
(apparently they are busy re-designing the design on tail fins) that
this simple relationship and the effect it might have simply didn't
occur to them.

According to the BA person I was talking to today they had calculated
that by off loading the catering (and other) services they would
reduce the probability of the follow on strikes they have seen before
and the last few days has caught them completely flat footed.


Clearly there is incompetence on BA's part for not realising this
earlier and doing something about it.

However, there should be legal and financial consequences for said
baggage handlers and others not directly involved in the dispute to
withdraw their labour in regard to a dispute that is in a different
company and different operational area.

I suppose that it is sufficiently long after the wrecking of industry
in the 60s and 70s by inappropriate industrial action for people to
remember the eventual consequences.


--

..andy

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