History I Who are we I How did we get on the Council I Members for 2009 - 2010 I Summer News 2010
The British Airways Retired Staff Liaison Council was set up more than 20 years ago by the BA Personnel Department. At first the Council was a mixture of BA management, administrators and retired staff.
The Council was established with a formal constitution and evolved into a retired staff only group of 12 members electing its own Chairman.
The Council is the group that BA formally consults on any matter that concerns the retired community. BA is obliged to hear our views and respond accordingly. The Council also has the right to make representation to BA about issues of general concern to retired employees.
On some matters of interest to both current and retired employees the Council operates in parallel with BATUC in dealing with BA managers.
The Council reports to retirees through its page in Touchdown and at other times through a number of electronic media and on request. A summary of the report appears in the FAQs.
Recently a number of retirees have asked “just who are you?” and “where did you come from?”.
The members of the Council bring with them a wide spread of experiences, backgrounds and knowledge.
We have two members who are retired flying crew, a pilot and a cabin crew member and a third one who did both jobs, albeit briefly.
We also have members who retired from engineering, finance, marketing, IT/IM, HR, purchasing and people who served overseas.
A few of these were former managers, including senior managers, but not too many!
Half of the Council have been staff representatives, some long standing and with senior TU roles and responsibilities.
We have a couple of former internal consultants and someone who worked in employee relations. We also have a BA pension scheme trustee and a welfare & benevolent fund trustee.
Many retirees, I hope, will know of or remember at least some of us! We think and act collectively for and on behalf of all retired employees.
How did we get on the Council?
A number of retirees have also asked “who voted for you?”. Up until many years ago there was indeed a ballot for vacancies on the Council.
However, retirees voted in small numbers and the cost was excessive when set against its actual effectiveness and the huge waste of unreturned ballot papers. Thus, recruitment was changed to a selection process.
Evidence from the past years has demonstrated that any supposed entry barrier has been lowered and a much wider cross section of retirees have come forward to make the Council a much more representative and broader group of people.
Selection also allows some minimum standards to be set and the best candidates to be selected. British Airways supports the process to ensure that the assessment and selection is run to the highest standards of fairness and equality.
The Council, however, makes the selection and appointment decisions itself and has indeed de-selected ‘sitting’ members. Four vacancies are declared every year in the spring issue of Touchdown.
The current members of the Council are Sigrid Mapp ( Chairman ), Mike Potter ( Vice-Chairman ), Nigel Allam, Frans de Graaf, Christopher Hodgkinson, Robert James, Terry Jukes, David Larkin, Stuart Scott, Mickey Stewart and Win Thompson.
The Secretary is Jilly Ellson. E-mail: Liaison.1.council@ba.com