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BA Says No Need to Fire & Rehire Staff

Posted on 17th September 2020

Alex Cruz, boss of major airline, British Airways has announced that there will be no need to ‘fire and rehire’ employees, despite previous news.

The airline had been accused previously by both unions and MPs of following a policy of ‘fire and rehire’ within which some employees were facing huge pay cuts of up to 50%. However, Alex Cruz has stated that there won’t be a need to issue new contracts, ‘subject to staff approval.’

Though BA and union Unite have been at loggerheads over the airlines’ proposal to cut 13,000 jobs with pay drops to others, it has been reported that last week the pair managed to reach an ‘outline of a jobs agreement.’

Responding to Mr Cruz’s statement that he believed it to be a matter of regret that it took a total of 73 days for the non-pilot unions to sit down to negotiate, Sam Tarry, Labour MP said: “I would argue that if you hadn’t put a metaphorical gun to their head then that might not have happened.”

Though some details are yet to be finalised and some staff ballots are still to be held, the airline’s boss has claimed that it will now follow the ‘standard methodology’ of union agreements, amending existing contracts instead of replacing them.
Cabin crew who have been with the airline for a substantial amount of years are now facing a pay cut of 15% but are hopeful that they will keep a number of the allowances which constitute a large amount of their overall pay.

Mr Cruz also stated that, due to previous claims of job cuts being made of up to 13,000, that the airline doesn’t need to get to that number, though many long-serving cabin crew have already opted for and taken voluntary redundancy as they felt at the time, the terms being offered left them with no other choice.

The airline is still operating at a much lesser capacity compared to normal due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Last week for example, it flew just 187,000 passengers, which is merely 25-30% of its usual schedule.

Mr Cruz who said that “Everyone is facing decisions we never wanted to make” took a 33% pay cut from the £805,000 he earned in 2019, however, he refused to comment on a bonus of £833,000 which had been paid to Willie Walsh, the outgoing boss of BA’s parent company, IAG.


Source:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54176543