From the beginning of the Corona virus crisis the company made it clear they wanted to reshape and reduce our operations and headcount to allegedly survive. 

Employees across the business would be served notice on their contracts and rehired on inferior terms. BA’s Fire and Rehire plan made headlines and outraged cross-party MPs.

While the vast majority of British Airways employees and their representatives were furloughed as part of the Job Retention Scheme, the company decided to launch a consultation campaign to inform us of the future changes that awaited us.

Before the negotiations with our union representatives were even completed, older and longer-serving employees deemed surplus to the operation were either made redundant or demoted following a selection process that remains obscure to us. Those who remained were made to agree to variations to their contracts without knowing basic details such as earnings and working hours if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Anyone refusing the new terms and conditions would be made Redundant.

Thousands of our colleagues uncomfortable with the process and extremely worried about what their future working life would look like made the difficult decision to leave the company through Voluntary Redundancy.

Among those remaining, many employees like ourselves contacted BA management to request more details about the changes that were going to impact our working life as well as our personal life before accepting the new contract.

Our questions were not welcome and the company proceeded to make us redundant on the basis that we disagreed with the new terms. Our careers came to an abrupt end in 5 days and we weren’t given any right to appeal.

After the shock of the redundancy notification we had to deal with the multiple attempts from BA to have us sign a settlement agreement  which in essence would deprive us of any right to bring claims against them. We were also informed we would lose our travel perks if we didn’t sign. We all decided against signing as we feel so strongly about getting redress through the courts for the way we have been treated.

We have instructed a law firm that will support us and fight our case against British Airways and the money we will raise will cover legal fees for preparing the case, start proceedings and cover the cost of potential appeals by BA.

We want to take a stand against unfairness and discrimination in the workplace but we need your support to get our voices heard and challenge large corporations like British Airways in an Employment Tribunal.

We will give regular updates on our case from the moment it’s lodged.

Thank you for any contribution you can make and for supporting us in our fight for justice.