A new Dashboard Performance Management Scheme introduced by British airways to regularly assess the performance of cabin crew has seen 8,800 members of the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (BASSA), a section of Unite which is the UK’s largest trade union, decide to vote on whether to take industrial action in an attempt to suspend its introduction.
According to Unite, with this newly introduced system “you are constantly given red, green, and possibly amber based on a never ending ‘continual improvement’ score which, we believe, eventually year-on-year will become impossible to achieve.” The concern is that this system will give BA management the right to terminate the contracts of long-serving employees.
According to Matt Smith, Unite’s regional officer, “A perfectly adequate performance management policy already exists. Our members have already overwhelmingly indicated they want this Dashboard system suspended until their worst fears have been allayed through meaningful consultation, with guarantees over job security.
“Quite frankly, this is an out of control human resources fantasy project and it is no surprise employees are pushing back against its ill-thought out introduction.”
A consultative ballot has already taken place with 94% of BASSA members keen on strike action. The current ballot which will run from Thursday July 21 to August 17 inclusive will be for Eurofleet and Worldwide Fleet cabin crew and will be based at Heathrow, London.
A spokesman for BA commented: “Since launching our performance management tool for senior cabin crew we have listened to and acted on feedback from colleagues.
“We remain open to further discussion to ensure that it continues to help our crew deliver consistently outstanding service to our customers.
“We’ve introduced a new system which includes feedback from customers about how they are looked after on board. This sort of feedback is common in all industries. The system enables us to commend cabin crew who perform well and support those that need to improve so that we ensure our customers get the very highest standards of service.”
Correction: In yesterday’s article titled Expressions of interest sought for equity stake in privatization of SriLankan Airlines we erroneously quoted finances in INR and not LKR. This has been amended and we apologise to readers for the error.
