Health and safety
In 2007/08, there were a total of 23 major injuries recorded across our business. The majority of these injuries related to employees slipping or tripping.
But within this total, there was an increase in reported injuries involving engineers suffering fall injuries while working on aircraft both in the hangars and on the line. As a consequence of these incidents, we launched a review of the access equipment used by our engineers. Following trials and a significant investment, we started taking delivery of new equipment in March 2008 and will continue this replacement programme up to September 2008. A combined communication and supervision process is being introduced to ensure that the correct equipment is used for the many tasks that are carried out and we expect to see a reduction in fall-related injuries as a result.
Manual handling injuries continue to be the most common injury. In conjunction with our employer’s liability insurers, we are introducing a series of focused training programmes across our business. Baggage and loading staff have completed their training with cabin crew, flight crew, engineering and cargo scheduled to start training later in the year. Each training programme will focus on risks associated with the specific roles and we will do a root cause analysis with employees who report an injury.
Employees injured whilst at work are able to benefit from a company-sponsored rehabilitation programme. This benefit has been extended to employees who are injured away from work to help them return to work as soon as possible.
During the year, British Airways Maintenance Cardiff received a Prohibition Notice from the Health and Safety Executive for a piece of access equipment that was deemed unsuitable. The piece of equipment was immediately removed from service and the Notice closed.
Moving a huge number of vehicles and pieces of equipment into Terminal 5 – safely and efficiently – required a considerable amount of planning. This involved closing a runway and moving convoys of equipment from both Terminals 1 and 4 to Terminal 5 throughout the night. The migration was completed successfully and safely.
Our behavioural safety programme, Rampsafe, continues to deliver safety improvements with a reduction in damage to aircraft and equipment.
Employment tribunals
During 2007/08, the Group was served with 69 new proceedings in the Employment Tribunals.
British Airways Plc was the Respondent in all but six of the 69 proceedings. The other six are one each in BA Avionic Engineering and BA CityFlyer, and two each in BA Interiors and BA Regional.
Of the 69 proceedings, the following points are noted:
- Eight claims were multi-applicant proceedings, i.e. there is more than one claimant. Of these eight, five were groups of fewer than 100 claimants. Of the remaining, two related to how holiday pay should be calculated under the Civil Aviation (Working Time) Regulations, and were brought by pilot and cabin crew trades unions on behalf of all their (respectively) over 3,000 and 10,759 members who are British Airways employees and the third was a claim for a payment under the Employee Reward Plan by 114 employees of BA Regional Limited.
- 17 of the claims were for unfair dismissal, or unfair dismissal plus other claims of which none were discrimination claims. Of these, seven remain ongoing, two were settled and the other eight were withdrawn, won by British Airways or struck out by the Tribunal.
- 30 of the claims were for discrimination, or discrimination plus other claims. Of these, 17 remain ongoing, three were settled and the other 10 were withdrawn, won by British Airways or struck out by the Tribunal.
- For the first time, therefore, the number of claims including a discrimination element outweighs the number of claims for unfair dismissal.