British Airways Down from Computer Failure
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Looks like GMB doesn't even know what the word outsourced means...
Mick Rix, GMB's national officer for aviation said: "This could have all been avoided.
"BA in 2016 made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India... many viewed the company's actions as just plain greedy."
You can offshore to India, you can't outsource to it. outsourcing means an outside company, which a union is. Offshoring means outside of the country, which India is. You can do both, of course, but the outsourcing is to a company, not to a place.
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"Yes, the union has a big axe to grind, but still, people will want to know if the airline made its IT systems more vulnerable by scaling back computer support to save money."
This makes it sound like the union might have encouraged some problems to happen.
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Thankfully for those passengers right now... UK is still in the EU and they still have passenger rights. One of the many things likely going away soon.
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Why does a union imply the people are outsourced? or is that not what you said?
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@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
Why does a union imply the people are outsourced? or is that not what you said?
Because that's the definition of a union. the people work for the union, the company hires the union. It's just forced outsourcing, that's all that it is. It's combining outsourcing with a monopoly.
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@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
Why does a union imply the people are outsourced? or is that not what you said?
Because that's the definition of a union. the people work for the union, the company hires the union. It's just forced outsourcing, that's all that it is. It's combining outsourcing with a monopoly.
That's interesting.. I'm pretty sure when my wife worked for OPS (local school district), she didn't work for the union, she worked for the School.
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@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
Why does a union imply the people are outsourced? or is that not what you said?
Because that's the definition of a union. the people work for the union, the company hires the union. It's just forced outsourcing, that's all that it is. It's combining outsourcing with a monopoly.
That's interesting.. I'm pretty sure when my wife worked for OPS (local school district), she didn't work for the union, she worked for the School.
Well, in some ways that is true for ALL outsourcing. Outsourced staff are still "employees" of the original entity. Outsourcing means that they are paid by or connected to a second entity - but in almost all outsourced situations you are still overseen by the original entity (the school, British Airways, whatever) making you an employee of them.
But the union or the outsourcer determines if you can work, what you get paid, controls your contract, etc. The union is identical to any other outsourcer in every way - except that they have a monopoly on the employment so no market pressure for them to do a good job. They can hijack your paycheck to take money out of it like no other entity can do; they are like an outsourcer meets communism / planned economy meets the mafia.
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@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
....she didn't work for the union, she worked for the School.
Then how was she in the union? Did the union get dues? If so, how? If they were a third party, they'd have no power to do that. It's only by being the outsourcer and owning a guaranteed monopoly contract on labour that they can do what they do.
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@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
....she didn't work for the union, she worked for the School.
Then how was she in the union? Did the union get dues? If so, how? If they were a third party, they'd have no power to do that. It's only by being the outsourcer and owning a guaranteed monopoly contract on labour that they can do what they do.
Due were voluntary. After a few years she disagreed with how the union was doing things so she left the union, aka, stopped paying dues. it's a weird setup for sure.
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@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
....she didn't work for the union, she worked for the School.
Then how was she in the union? Did the union get dues? If so, how? If they were a third party, they'd have no power to do that. It's only by being the outsourcer and owning a guaranteed monopoly contract on labour that they can do what they do.
Due were voluntary. After a few years she disagreed with how the union was doing things so she left the union, aka, stopped paying dues. it's a weird setup for sure.
Oh, weird. Was it REALLY a union then? Sounds more like a club or group of some sort. Maybe you can have a real union like that, but how does it work if it is voluntary? I mean, that's great, but it's weird for sure.
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@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
....she didn't work for the union, she worked for the School.
Then how was she in the union? Did the union get dues? If so, how? If they were a third party, they'd have no power to do that. It's only by being the outsourcer and owning a guaranteed monopoly contract on labour that they can do what they do.
Due were voluntary. After a few years she disagreed with how the union was doing things so she left the union, aka, stopped paying dues. it's a weird setup for sure.
Oh, weird. Was it REALLY a union then? Sounds more like a club or group of some sort. Maybe you can have a real union like that, but how does it work if it is voluntary? I mean, that's great, but it's weird for sure.
You are oversimplifying union shops. They take many forms. Some are mandatory, others are not. In some places you negotiate your own contract if you are not a member. In others you get the same contract as the union members whether you join or not. The list of permutations goes on.
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@NDC said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Dashrender said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
....she didn't work for the union, she worked for the School.
Then how was she in the union? Did the union get dues? If so, how? If they were a third party, they'd have no power to do that. It's only by being the outsourcer and owning a guaranteed monopoly contract on labour that they can do what they do.
Due were voluntary. After a few years she disagreed with how the union was doing things so she left the union, aka, stopped paying dues. it's a weird setup for sure.
Oh, weird. Was it REALLY a union then? Sounds more like a club or group of some sort. Maybe you can have a real union like that, but how does it work if it is voluntary? I mean, that's great, but it's weird for sure.
You are oversimplifying union shops. They take many forms. Some are mandatory, others are not. In some places you negotiate your own contract if you are not a member. In others you get the same contract as the union members whether you join or not. The list of permutations goes on.
Apparently. I've been on both sides of the table and in all cases that I've been involved with, the union "owned" the employees, from both perspectives. The company had no access to hiring anyone that wasn't union, and the union works had no rights or say. The union owned the relationship. All employee rights were gone.
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how does collective bargaining work in a situation where people can voluntarily join or leave the union based on personal benefit?
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Of course... how does it ever work
I've watched highly paid blue collar workers go to minimum wage overnight because they brought in a union with zero leverage. Union, making their money whether they did a good job or not, simply signed the minimum wage deal and moved on. Got zero benefits, since they had no leverage to even get the shop to negotiate. Drop wages in half, literally.
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@scottalanmiller said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
how does collective bargaining work in a situation where people can voluntarily join or leave the union based on personal benefit?
Depends on the state. If it's a right to work state you don't have to be a part of the union.
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British Airways: Chaos continues at Heathrow
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40074751 -
I've read this problem has been blamed on failure of 1 UPS... Anybody have any detail on that?
I'd be surprised if a company like BA runs servers somewhere protected by only 1 UPS, including the backup servers/systems.I read that a power surge and a faulty UPS rendered both the live systems, and the backups systems unavailable... that's insane if true.
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@Jimmy9008 Yeah heard that this morning too, not seen any reports yet on BBC etc.
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@Jimmy9008 said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
I've read this problem has been blamed on failure of 1 UPS... Anybody have any detail on that?
I'd be surprised if a company like BA runs servers somewhere protected by only 1 UPS, including the backup servers/systems.I read that a power surge and a faulty UPS rendered both the live systems, and the backups systems unavailable... that's insane if true.
I've seen similar stuff here. Our backup generators had a bad circuit breaker. When the weekly test rolled around, it would take down our main server room any time the AC came on while the generators were running...
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@hobbit666 said in British Airways Down from Computer Failure:
@Jimmy9008 Yeah heard that this morning too, not seen any reports yet on BBC etc.
Yeah, I get that things can happen. But the report I read said the power issue took out the live and backup systems. Our backup systems/DR is the other side of the country... no way can 1 x UPS or a bad generator in the live site kill both systems...
Were BA running live and DR within the same building, off of the same UPS and generator?...
That's what I mean; I just don't see how a UPS or power issue in their datacenter could have caused the problem. Something else must have been the cause. Or a REALLY bad design/infrastructure engineer designed them.
