As part of the Professional Affairs Team’s learning and development programme John Stembridge-King and Terry Brandon attended the TUC/IDS Pay Bargaining in 2009 Conference on 17 February at Congress House in London. The opening address from Frances O’Grady, Deputy General Secretary, TUC, (the first woman ever to hold this post) was inspirational. Her key notes, which chimed well with BALPA’s strategy for ‘Rising to the Challenge’, were:

• Bargaining at a critical time
• The ability to hold our nerve
• Defend pay and pensions
• Evidence based pay claims
• Pressure test the employer’s case
• Win the intellectual argument

Against the backdrop of a banking collapse, recession, rising unemployment and RPI inflation heading for a negative figure, her key note address lacked the tangible evidence required to support her call for unity at a time of unprecedented economic downturn. The mood of the delegates was understandably sombre.


However, to provide a glimmer of hope in these bleak economic times, BALPA provided the shining example of unity. During a presentation on long-term agreements and re-opener clauses from Nicola Allison of Income Data Services the pros and cons of long-term pay deals were discussed. One key point was that reneging on deals was extremely rare and various case studies were explored, one of which was the three-year deal at bmi.

Unexpectedly, BALPA was invited to address the conference on how the bmi case was handled from a Union perspective. This was a fantastic opportunity to highlight the importance of the ‘Rising to the Challenge’ toolkit and provide a living example that underpinned the TUC’s call to keep a cool head when defending pay and pensions. The BALPA ‘Prove It!’ campaign to pressure test the employer’s case received a very positive acknowledgement from the delegates and the immediate feedback was that they were very impressed with BALPA’s resilience and fortitude to challenge an imposed ‘pay freeze’.

The TUC delegates applauded BALPA’s example of being united in the interests of pilots.