BA and Part Time Working.

You may remember that case where a female BA pilot won her sex discrimination case over part time working? She wanted to work on a 50% contract and BA said that as she had less than 2,000 hours logged she could only work on a 75% one? Well, she has also won the next stage, the appeal.

You may not be surprised to hear that I think there is an economic set up to this. It costs some 40 grand to train to be an airline pilot. This particular woman had that paid for by BA on a scholarship. If BA, in return for its investment in the training of staff is now only going to get 50% work out of them, what effect do we think this is going to have on the number of women they offer such scholarships to?

One small fact:

A full-time BA pilot works 16 days a month.

So the difference between the 50% contract she desires and the 75% contract being offered is whether to work 8 or 12 days a month. A stunning advance for women’s rights, don’t you think, won at the expense of all of those who won’t be able to follow her. I mean, it’s not as if she didn’t know what was in the contract when she joined now, is it?