BA's no-fly sickness list breaks dispute

News | HSW
01.03.2007

Colds and flu leading to blocked ears, diarrhoea and vomiting and sickness abroad are among the conditions agreed by British Airways (BA) as making cabin crew unfit for duty, in the agreement on absence management that averted strikes planned by the T&G union. Managers will now be expected to ignore time off linked to these conditions when reviewing cabin crew absence.

The dispute centred on the operation of EG300, the attendance procedure negotiated by BA and the unions in 2005, and led to the threat of three 72-hour strikes at the end of January.

EG300 was designed to curb absence levels averaging 22 days a year among the BA workforce. It introduced new absence thresholds or "trigger points" for line managers to investigate an employee's absence record. The triggers are two absences in any three months, a total of 4.5% of working hours off in any 12 months or more than 21 days' consecutive absence. Managers must carry out Absence Review Interviews  with employees who pass the thresholds and can progress to second and third stages in the policy if unwarranted absence does not reduce, culminating in disciplinary action and even dismissal. The policy gave managers the authority to discount "certain occasions of absence" when they monitored individual absence, but did not list specific conditions.

EG300 is credited with helping BA reduce absence rates from 22 to 12 days. But the T&G, which represents 11 000 of BA's 14 000 cabin crew, says it had been concerned by the absence procedure from its introduction 15 months ago.

"The issue was not the policy itself," said T&G spokesperson Andrew Dodgshon, "but how it was being implemented ... Because the new policy was being operated on management discretion there was a high level of inconsistency and a climate of fear."

The T&G claimed some managers refused to discount conditions that left cabin crew unfit for work where ground staff might have been able to attend, so cabin crew felt pressured to work with conditions such as blocked ears (where flight can increase the risk of perforated eardrums). 

BA argued that as much as 25% of sickness absence was discounted by managers and that only two members of staff had been dismissed for excessive absence since EG300 came into force.

The dispute escalated to the threat of strikes, which prompted direct talks between T&G general secretary Tony Woodley and BA chief executive Willie Walsh at the end of January.

The changes to cabin crew procedures they agreed include a list of conditions, including pregnancy-related sickness, one-off injuries and emotional trauma as well as colds and flu and "down-route sickness" (illnesses contracted abroad), which would exclude crew from carrying out their duties. "The normal practice will be for an occasion of absence relating to these conditions to be discounted; however, the line manager will endeavour to look at all the circumstances," says the new guidance.

The T&G and the airline have agreed to work together to "resolve any issues arising from the application of the policy".