Word: ba
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...just be working for free. British Airways recently asked its 40,000 employees to consider laboring for nothing for up to one month. "Colleagues are being urged to help the airline's cash-saving drive by signing up for unpaid leave or unpaid work," read an article in BA News, the carrier's in-house newspaper. Chief executive Willie Walsh, who has pledged to forgo his $100,000 monthly salary in July, said the airline was caught in a "fight for survival...
...Thumped by a global depression, firms just about everywhere have gone to town on staff costs in recent months, from salary cuts to mandatory unpaid leaves. But BA is going further. Volunteers can sacrifice between a week and one month's worth of salary, or else spread the pain by taking a reduced salary for three to six months. Union officials have scoffed at the proposal. "Willie Walsh can afford to work a month for free," says a spokesman for Unite, BA's biggest union. "Our members can't." (See pictures of London's Heathrow Airport...
...Walsh, though, can't afford to do nothing. Tumbling passenger numbers and a soaring fuel bill pushed BA to a pretax loss of $656 million in the 12 months leading to last April. The year before, BA made $1.5 billion. "The prolonged nature of the global downturn makes this the hardest trading environment we have ever faced," Walsh said as the results were announced in May, "with no immediate improvement visible...
...Coaxing staff to work for free is only the airline's latest effort to pare costs. BA has said it will idle 16 more planes this winter, adding to the 3% cut in capacity instigated in late 2008. Management bonuses have been shelved. Unpaid leave and temporary or permanent part-time work, meanwhile, have been on the table since last month. And talks with unions are continuing over how to squeeze staff costs still further - BA's head count has already fallen by 2,500 since last summer. (Read "British Airways: Cabin Pressure...
...spark from every nerve, and she shows a gift for tart comedy here too. To get her job done, Jackie needs to be part nurturer, part con artist, part stand-up comic. "What do you call a nurse with a bad back?" she asks in a voice-over. "Unemployed! Ba...