British Airways asks employees to work without pay

British Airways asks employees to work without pay

finance.yahoo.com

LONDON (AP) -- British Airways on Tuesday urged its staff to work for nothing in an effort to save the company money.

British Airways PLC is struggling to come up with ways to save cash after reporting its biggest full-year loss since the former national airline was privatized in 1987.

BA chief Willie Walsh has said he would not draw a salary for the month of July, and urged other employees to work for blocks of time without being paid.

"I am looking for every single part of the company to take part in some way in this cash-effective way of helping the company's survival plan. It r

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So a major company has asked its staff to work for free for a month.

It seems that its going a bit beyond the normality of economics. They have already cut about 2500 jobs to date. So is this a last ditch effort to keep the airline afloat??? Or is it economic and social blackmail? If you don't take the condition of 'no pay' then your out of job.

When you have kids at home and mortgage, to consider either options is unfathomable.

So what next i wonder ?

finance.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I know several people all around the U.S. that got salary freezes.
Haven't heard it anywhere on the news though

This is nothing really, except for the size of the company.

But I guarantee they should say no, because an entire month means alot
How are you going to pay your mortgage?

If they aren't going to pay you for a month it's a safe assumption you won't get the money afterwards either.

Maybe the execs should sell their office furniture instead and THEY take a pay cut. That would send a great message and improve employee morale.

That's what I would do!

Well the guy sounds desparate to save the company. If they go under none of them will have a job. It isnt like the good old days (last year ) when a company like this could just borrow whatever they needed.

I feel bad to that CEO, I bet he is really stressed about the company going under. Not for his sake, but for the workers and shareholders.

Over here in Holland they asked most pilots to also help out with ground operations such as bagage handling and hospitality.
This way the airport can save a lot of money by not outsourcing this kind of work.

All the pilots agreed by the way.......

Peace

reply to post by operation mindcrime


Good for them. Tough times calls for tough people who wlling to do what they can to help the company survive. It beats being unemployed.

I wonder if British Airways would let me fly for free because I don't have a lot of money?

reply to post by grapesofraft


I agree, It beats sitting at home doing nothing.
30 days of no pay or many months of no pay trying to find a job. Who knows, after everything settles you might get compensated for your days you worked for nothing.

double post, oops and soz


[edit on 16-6-2009 by boaby_phet]

you would have to be mug to work a days work for a company that big and not expect to get payed, no matter how bad they say they are!

i about fell off my seat laughing when i heard that, if their that bad financialy why dont they sell a few planes or try lowering their prices,.

its better to work 30 days and not get paid for it than it is to be unemployed and not get paid? i dont mean to offend but what are you smoking?

heres a better suggestion, for ba staff, if things are that bad in the company, dont work a month free, just keep your next months pay and find a new job while their, better than working a month for no money then maybe having no job,... take a weeks holiday and find a new job. dont work for 30 days for no pay.. thats just crazy! .. like pointed out, would they give their staff or anyone else free flights because their running a bit low? i seriously doubt it,.

I guess with the times that we face globally, if I worked for them I would have to say yes to this. In every effort to keep my job, it is better to have lost a month's worth of pay than to have no job at all.

Ridiculous. People who have families CAN'T work for free, not even a month. Hello...mortgage? Council taxes? FOOD? Gas? Insurance? Utilities?

Sure, I'm certain Mr. Walsh could breeze through a couple months, no pay. Maybe he should sell his yachts or whatever and use that to pay the employees?

Because in the real world with real people, every cent is needed just to survive.

that's pretty drastic. i mean who's out there working for fun or just to meet people?
not everyone can just not have an income for a whole month. that's about $5500. for the average joe.

i HOPE they stopped all the employee free flights at least. because those flights add up big.

i agree with above poster. sell the mahogany wood executive desks, and perks. they should start there and trickle their way down. on a percentage scale of employee earnings.

If I remember rightly, the Honda workers in the UK are working without pay because the alternative is for them to lose their jobs. Remeber, under the British governemnts laws those who are working for nothing but have partners who are working more than 16 hours a week will receive no help from the government what so ever.
Wouldn't it be more honest if we asked those responsible for the recession, politicians, to take a pay cut? Heavens forbid!!! They wouldn't work for nothing so why should British Airways staff?

Work for nothing!!

Communism here we come

A smaller European low cost airliner hasn't paid its people for months now. Analysts expect them to file bankruptcy in a matter of weeks/months.

Anyhow, I really didn't expect British Airways' situation to be so severe. ''Volunteering'' for one month is not gonna save a company from bankruptcy, it will merely prolong its terminal phase and go bankrupt eventually anyway.

KLM merged with Airfrance a couple of years ago as they understood it would be their only possibility to remain competitive as a result of synergies. British airways should perhaps have done the same.

Welcome to capitalism.

reply to post by Mdv2


well thats exactly it. staff not collecting their pay is not going to save them from bankruptcy, it is just going to prolong the pain for the workers.

i worked for a company who once asked us to work for free for a month. why? because they were overdrawn and had some financial issues but the solution was to extend their businesss operations line of credit. sure they pay slightly higher interest but it was way better than not paying the workers. and the surprising thing is that it was a small company compared to what BA is.

Why doesn't the CEO who asked for the workers cooperation volunteer to work without pay for a YEAR. i bet his annual salary will be more than the cumulative total of a whole lot of mainstream employees.