British Airways Expects Employees to Work for Free

Yesterday, United Kingdom airline British Airways, who has seen the largest one-year loss since being privatized in 1987, asked employees to save the company money by working for free. Naturally, a struggling company would try to save money wherever possible, but that might be a little extreme. It is a bit difficult to tell employees that you are expecting them to work for free.

Willie Walsh, chief of British Airways, said he will not draw a salary for the month of July, demonstrating that no employee is exempt to the expectation and that it really is that important to the company. He urged other employees to work for blocks of time entirely unpaid. In a company publication, Walsh commented, “I am looking for every single part of the company to take part in some way in this cash-effective way of helping the company’s survival plan. It really counts.”

BA said it was a request that meant employees would basically volunteer to take a cut in base pay, allowing the lost income to be spread out over the course of several months. The company said last month there was a chance it would ask employees to consider working unpaid hours or shifts.

The UNITE union, which represents airline employees, including thousands of British Airways ground and cabin crew, did not respond well to this idea. UNITE said that while British Airways chief Walsh might be able to afford working a month for free, the employees could not. After all, most employees nearly live paycheck to paycheck.

British Airways said last month that it had lost 375 million pounds ($595 million) in their fiscal year which ended March 31. Compare this with a profit of 712 million pounds in the previous fiscal year and you understand their concern. They are trying to curb their worst totals in more than twenty years of public business. The previous low point was a loss of 200 million pounds in the 2001-2002 year.