Border Agency Strike

[Norman Verona]

Grieg, you posted as I was posting.

If you had been asking for talks on a very delicate subject - the security of our country and had got nowhere in 18 months would you take this opportunity to push the issue. As above, they have said, agree to talks and we'll call off the strike.

I suspect that if they lose this bluff they will never get the talks, our border security will be privatised and then we'll see the news that bombers just walked off a plane and entered the country.

[tolf]

Sorry, but if the to**ers at the BA dont like their jobs or terms, then b******* off and get another job. I'm fed up with this namby pamby attitude that our country seems to have.

Its simple, either like it or lump it and naff off. There are plenty of unemployed people who would gladly take their places

[Norman Verona]

Tolf, not sure what BA has to do with this.

We're talking about border agency staff. The "dispute" is not about pay it's about the erosion of their pensions and the slow, creeping privatisation of their jobs.

They have been trying to start talks with their employers, the government for 18 months. I can understand their actions.

To stop the strike it would appear that all that's required is for the government to agree to talks.

If the government carry their plans through you'll have an organisation like G4S checking immigration and passports. Are you happy about that?

[frubpato?]

I think in this case BA means Border Agency .

I really don't understand why people think that it is OK to strike . If they are that concerned about the safety of the country how does withdrawing your labour help that security . It is pious bull from the leaders . In terms of pensions , it is interesting to see how many of the unions offer their staff final salary schemes !

The BA staff offer a exceptionally poor service - they have a skewed view of their "customers" . It is not rocket science to vary your manning based on the number of flights landing - they have mostly been in the air for an hour or more so not a huge shock to see how many people are pitching up.

As a particular example , Manchester T1 has the E - gates , they stop working at 11pm no matter what is happening but they actually shut down at about 10.40 as the staff log off at a central position and it takes them 20 minutes to get back there "apparently"

Finally I dont remember the public sector rushing to the barricades when the private sector were being forced into money purchase pensions - so funnily enough we dont feel well disposed to them especially when they struggle to pitch up for 37.5 hour a week , That is half a week for most people in the private sector .

I really shouldn't post after 2 pints and a couple of glasses of wine , the amount of spell checking this post needed is embarrassing !

I'm off to wee in the shower (I am in Cheshire after all)

[pistonbroke]

well said , no gov agency ever helped me when I got made redundant and my pension went down the drain , I just have to grin and bear it .

No time at all for white collar workers with pensions that go with the job .

I personally know ex officers in the fire service who have been retired early, simply so the next man in line can get promoted before he reaches retirement age and get his share of a fat final salary pension

[tolf]

Norman

All i want is staff that are happy to do the job and not moan and threaten to go on strike at one of the most important times. Yes if they come from g4s and they can do the job, then so be it. To be honest looking at a passport or a scanner is not the most challenging of jobs.

Final line to the BA (thats border agency) staff for you norm

If you dont like your job, get another one. I did a few years ago when my old company were a pain to work for

Vive le UK!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tolf]

Also Norman

If you support the BA actions, would you be happy to wait in a que for 4 hours to pass imigration?

[Norman Verona]

Pensions. Now who was it who passed legislation to privatise pensions. I remember Barbara Castle on R4 saying that it cost 1/2 p to collect money for state pensions and we were going to pay far more PLUS commissions to the private sector with NO GUARANTEE that we would get a decent pension.

If you take on a job which has a pension scheme you are entitled to have that scheme through to the end. You didn't hold a gun to anyone's head, it was offered freely. Maybe in hindsight it's generous but that is not the recipients fault.

Bernie, I sympathise with you. However why blame others who get a decent pension. Blame the politicians who, through lax legislation, allowed it to happen.

At the risk of repeating myself (me, repeat myself!). This is a matter of real importance. I don't like the fact that they've called a strike a day before the Olympics start. It isn't "playing the game". But I ask you, if you had been asking for talks for 18 months would you take the opportunity to get your boss to the table. The strike can be avoided, all it will take is for the government to agree to talks. They won't because they do not want the public to realise that they are privatising our border security.

Why are you blaming the staff for the 4 hour waits at Heathrow. Do you think it may have been management at fault.

Let's look at the future. G4S take over the job of vetting immigration and passport checking. They will pay as little as they can get away with whilst charging us the maximum they can screw out of us. As is happening with the Olympics, staff will not turn up (did I hear 40 out of an expected 170 turned in for duty). The queues won't be 4 hours long because they will just wave people through.

We had an immigration service that was the envy of the world. It was called Customs and Excise. The government of the day, for unclear reasons, dismantled it and put in place the "Border Agency". I suspect the long term aim was privatisation. We have since had immigration spinning out of control, and passport controls that cause 4 hour queues.

So, why blame the workers, look at the reasons behind these things.

I think I'll leave it at that before I make myself more unpopular than I already am.

[tolf]

I am firmly blaming the workers because it is the workers who are going on strike. Norm, you talk about the withdrawl of pensions, well when i started at my current employer we had a final salary scheme, this has just been stopped, not nice but i understand why. Its time for the public sector employees to wake up, realise they cant have what is not possible, and ACCEPT it! This has been happening in the private sector for years, the cushy number in the public sector is comming to an end.

Welcome to the real world of work

[Norman Verona]

I said I'd leave it, but you know me.

You seem to think that this is only about pensions and that the strike is to protect their pensions.

It isn't.

They are concerned about the proposed reduction in their pensions and want to discuss it with the employer.

They are concerned about the move towards privatisation of the immigration and passport controls. They want to discuss this with the employer.

I'm concerned about further degradation in our immigration and passport controls. I can see the day when we are saying it was a big mistake to leave these hugely important security matters to private companies whose first responsibility is to shareholders. I've seen many such statements about changes that have been made in the past where warnings were ignored and we all come to regret it.

They have been asking for 18 months. They have not had a response. Nothing.

I don't understand how an organisation could enter into a contract on pay and pensions and then expect the employees to accept a change without discussing it or offering some compensation. Are you saying that your final salary scheme was cancelled without discussion or are you saying it was cancelled because the contract allowed for cancellation.

The public sector workers went through months of talks about pay cuts and pension reductions. They were told, before the end of discussions were reached that they had no choice to accept it and the government would not move. They went on strike in protest and were then blamed for "jumping the gun". Well why not as they'd been told the talks were a sham.

I have been an employer since the mid seventies. I always honour my agreement to staff. That's not to say I will not discuss issues and changing circumstances with them but I've never changed pay or working conditions arbitrarily. The trick is to look far enough ahead and test against worse case scenarios to ensure what to agree now will be affordable in 10,15, 20 years time. I seem to remember that civil servants pay was relatively low but the pensions were good.

ed to add that I always try to look at the reason people take the actions they do. I deploy the middle east suicide bombers, but I think I can see why they do what they do.

[tolf]

The simple fact is that if the staff dont like their jobs then go and get another one. There are more jobs than unemployed people today. The staff that go on strike at this busy time are just doing it out of spite, after all, if they have been asking for talks for 18 months, at what point do they take the hint that the govt are not going to enter talks, and decide to leave.

Btw my final salary scheme was cancelled with no discussion, just an announcement that the company could no longer afford the scheme.

I maintain my previous view;

If the staff dont want to do the job, then sack them and employ people who do.

Now, how many more times shall we discuss this Norm?

[Norman Verona]

So you accepted what was probably a breach of contract and lost a good pension.

You still haven't mentioned the aspect of the privatisation of an important part of our security.

[Crash test dummy]

I have to admit to a vested interest here. I was a Customs Officer for 32 years before the Government decided it would be a wizzo idea to merge frontline Customs officers with Immigration Officers to form what was the UKBA. This has been a process similar to mixing oil with water and close to pushing custard uphill with a feather- not easy. The fact is that Custom Officers are/were law enforcement officers with everything that brings with it and the majority of Immigration Officers are/were Civil Servants with a stamp! It was a massive fight to get them to wear a uniform let alone anything else.

But to be fair a lot of them got up off their backsides and embraced the new concept of the UKBA (now Border Force) and got on with it. Although, because of staff cuts and a shift in priorities, the former Customs Officers find themselves on passport desks most of the time and they struggle with that. It's a mess.

Two years ago UKBA decided that it would be a good idea to move people from back office jobs to the border. Great, we all think that's a good idea but in reality what they did was let loads of experienced and skilled people go on early release only to find that the little ladies (no offence meant) in admin who were surplus didn't actually want to work weekends and nights and speak to the great unwashed. So the result is a huge deficit of frontline officers. That coupled to an increased need for really tight border security has led to massive shortages.

Although the job of a border officer looks simple it has huge responsibilities. It's not a job that a private company can undertake, officers have access to information that is of the highest level of national security and to entrust this the likes of G4S just doesn't bear thinking about.

As far as pensions and pay goes it's a tough one. Yes the pension was generous (it's not any more) but that's what we signed up for. My pension contributions will have doubled by the time they have finished in 2015. As an ex HMRC officer I have had a pay freeze for 3 years and I can look forward to 1% for the next two. The best year for my pension was two years ago and I know that will not be bettered which means as far as my pension goes I have worked for 25% of my career for nowt.

My current post doesn't allow me to strike and I think that the timing of this one is all wrong but in certain parts of the home office there is genuine and warranted unrest.

[s2rrr]

If you rollover without a fight that would open the floodgates for every employer to try it on and lead to every known trick in the book being used. If you start your employment with a contract including a decent pension then its worth fighting for. It should actually be illegal to change it. If the company, sorry pension fund can't afford it then it should be frozen at where it was and maintained. That could lead to lower offers in future, but there are far too many examples of companies crying poverty with employees money. It is the trustees and the so called experts who advise the trustees and the pensions trusts that should have supplied proper figures instead of forgetting the simple fact that people are living longer for example, well what a suprise. In my view it is absolutely criminal to change peoples pensionable status's after they have been expecting and paying in for a stated amount for many years. Maxwell started it all and all the major employers have jumped on the bandwagon, the pension fund can't pay out expected high interest rates as they have been rubbish for a few years but the funds are or should be sufficiently managed to ensure people get what they have been promised. If indeed they do have to call for an increase in contibutions temporarily then so be it. Sack the trustees and get some people who get it right. I don't understand why these pension funds are now crying poverty as interest rates and investment opportunities haven't been good for a few years now. The pension fund members should take a more active roll in there money and how it is invested and paid out not just trust the incompetents. If everyone had to run away from a job because some boss decided to try it on we would never have any industry worth considering, in fact we probably haven't got many left as it is.

I think it is not the best timing for the dispute by the Border Agency people and I'm sure the Unions are using the maximum leverage possible. We should not be rolling over when the boss decides he will try another ploy.

My brother in law has just been Tuped for the 3rd time and his new boss is telling him he can't have his company car, his on call money would stop and his overtime would be cut. All are written into his contract of emplyment and so should be protected. Had he rolled over he would have lost loads, his HR knew the story about contractual issues and from what I hear the new boss was wrong on all scores. The new boss by the way is a graduate in his early 30s' never been anywhere or done anything but must be on a bonus for getting soft targets to roll over. Moral of the story don'y just give in when someone says it not possible.

Bob

[jeff oakley]

What I cannot understand with this is simple. What sort of union is ignored for 18months without raising it to such a degree? Second why does the goverment take such a short view of this. Norman is correct about honouring an agreement, so why do they not just say all new enterants get no final salary pension and they must by a private one? In the NHS they have altered the final salary pension in a similar way with new enterants being on a different scheme which is based on career average not on the final salary which stops the situation mentioned earlier with people being rewarded by jumping into a role at the last minute. Finally, stop the stupidity of allowing people in the police and fire service etc retiring after 25 years in future. They work until 65 or whatever the age is in the future but their contribution is less per year and it stops the waste of trained officers being lost.

I could go on but the reality is that the world has changed, people in all walks need to accept this and change as well. The unions refuse to do so, choosing balckmail, buses, train driver and now the BA all jumping in on the back of the olympics.