Report by the ABAP Staff Travel Campaign Working Group (STCWG)
Last December the STCWG - consisting of BA pensioners around the world - began the campaign to get three changes made to the proposals contained in ST09. Contrary to the assertion promulgated by certain BA managers, we did not seek the wholesale abandonment of the document which we recognised has some attractive benefits - for some pensioners.
We sought then and continue to seek now, three simple and relatively minor changes:
1 the removal from existing pensioners of the limitation on their entitlement to Staff Travel to their period of service;
2 the change in the Staff Travel entitlements of widows and widowers of existing pensioners;
3 the continuation of the right of existing pensioners to bank Long Service awards they have earned.
3 the continuation of the right of existing pensioners to bank Long Service awards they have earned.
On 1st March 2008 the STCWG made an appeal for contributions to a Fighting Fund to support these objectives. The response to date has been overwhelming and demonstrates how widespread the feeling is against the parts of ST09 which unfairly and unnecessarily affect a few thousand elderly pensioners.
Since British Airways was relying so heavily on its assertion that it had a legal right to make these changes, the Working Group decided a legal opinion should be sought to examine the extent to which BA could rely on the law to force these punitive and pointless changes on us and which established tenets of British law limited what they wished to do.
The QC’s initial opinion was received last week and is being studied by the Working Group and our lawyers. As a result certain questions arising have been put back to the QC and her team and we are optimistic of the outcome.
ABAP has a track record of successful actions at law against BA. Perhaps personnel changes since the end of the last decade mean that none of BA’s present Management recalls personally that ABAP won its case against BA in the High Court. More recently we successfully prevented BA from combining the two pension schemes - a move that would have benefited no-one except BA and its shareholders.
But not all disputes are best settled in court. We knew that when we embarked on this campaign and said as much from the outset. That Staff Travel is not a contractual benefit has never been in question, but merely because BA claimed the right to vary the terms of staff travel - which most of our letters of severance or retirement reminded us it could do - did that also mean BA could withdraw entirely a benefit given since the 1930's - and could it do so in a way that affected some people differently to others? Could it oblige people who because of their age and circumstances to use a computer to access the information and any benefits to which they are entitled?
Our brief to the QC was to examine several aspects raised by ABAP members, by former very senior staff, and by supporters around the world and to also give us the benefit of her experience on aspects of relevant law which we’d not considered.
What is clear is that British Airways has been underhand and shifty in every aspect of this matter. From the fatuous "consultations" which were in fact secret briefings started three years ago under legally enforceable confidentiality agreements with chosen members of the unelected Retired Staff Liaison Council, right up to the "publication" of ST09, the defining document, British Airways has sought to obfuscate. This document wasn’t sent openly to each pensioner in the way that BA is obliged to tell us of changes to our pensions, but slipped into an FAQ section on a website which only pensioners with access to the Internet and a password could read. Months later some of the terms were also published in Touchdown, but we know that not every pensioner receives Touchdown.
BA has every reason not to attract publicity because the effects of ST09 on some of the oldest pensioners will mean a complete change in the way they spend the rest of their lives. In fact it isn’t justified on any sensible ground - and certainly not on the dishonest claims made by BA that it will "save money". It is simply a selective, punitive change that will adversely affect a group of pensioners whilst making no difference whatsoever to the bottom line of the company’s accounts.
There is simply no logic to the move; on the contrary, in exchange for amending the three clauses of ST09 affecting a few thousand pensioners, BA would gain the support of all 47,000 pensioners who would feel it had done "the right thing".
In the next few weeks the STCWG will publish the next stage of its campaign. It will involve every pensioner and every member of staff for if BA succeeds in screwing a couple of thousand helpless pensioners out of a few subload flights they thought they’d earned over the years, where will they stop?
If you’re a pensioner, support us because this fight is the one before BA tries to steal your pension again. Don’t think they won’t try if given the opportunity.
If you’re a current staff member, support us because you will be a pensioner one day - maybe, if it suits British Airways, sooner than you thought.
A similar document to this has been posted on the ABAP website and is being sent in hard copy to all ABAP "postal" members. If any pensioners or present staff have friends or relatives in BA and can get copies of the document posted on all noticeboards it will help immensely.
