Russethouse Posted September 29, 2012 Share Posted September 29, 2012 Interesting Facebook page : http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/groups/toussolidairesavecbrittanyferries/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwmcn Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 RT, Funny how this news doesn't seem to be making the news on British TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 It's covered on ' South Today' each evening, but not in much detail.I think it's covered more fully in the west country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chancer Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 [quote user="Georgina"]I was offered an interview with them (an excruciating four hour interview) to work on the boats but when I found out that I would have to be on the boat the whole week I thought how on earth can they get anyone to do that? But they obviously do. Seems bizarre to take a week out of your life to work for them and have no life. And the staff are always very intelligent , well groomed and polite, not to mention bi lingual. If it were a British operation we would have the Poles all doing that shift LOL[/quote]Its a very sought after shift pattern and very few if any companies can still afford to operate it.You can get effectively a 3 week holiday by taking only one of the 5 weeks entitlement, taken to its limits you could work only 5 weeks in the first 20 weeks of the year by using all your holiday entitlement and then work only 16 of the remaining 32 weeks. Working only 21 weeks of the year its not hard to find staff!!And then you add in the sickness leave which in most syndicalised companies is seen as a perk that should be used in full and you can see why companies working in an open competitive market can no longer afford such shift patterns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwmcn Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 RT, I guess St Albans is too far 'north'. Our local news is the London one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 With BF using both Portsmouth and Plymouth I guess it has more relevance 'down south' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederick Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 [quote user="Chancer"][quote user="Georgina"]I was offered an interview with them (an excruciating four hour interview) to work on the boats but when I found out that I would have to be on the boat the whole week I thought how on earth can they get anyone to do that? But they obviously do. Seems bizarre to take a week out of your life to work for them and have no life. And the staff are always very intelligent , well groomed and polite, not to mention bi lingual. If it were a British operation we would have the Poles all doing that shift LOL[/quote]Its a very sought after shift pattern and very few if any companies can still afford to operate it.You can get effectively a 3 week holiday by taking only one of the 5 weeks entitlement, taken to its limits you could work only 5 weeks in the first 20 weeks of the year by using all your holiday entitlement and then work only 16 of the remaining 32 weeks. Working only 21 weeks of the year its not hard to find staff!!And then you add in the sickness leave which in most syndicalised companies is seen as a perk that should be used in full and you can see why companies working in an open competitive market can no longer afford such shift patterns.[/quote]They could do with somone like the Greek Cypriot owner of the Easygroup Stelios to come up with a ferry or two in competition. Perhaps they then would think twice about messing about the 85% of their customers who live on the UK side that they dont care about . Its the Cornish shell fish and crab fishermen I feef for who export to France as they cant store their catch while these BF crew members play silly Bu***rs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SC Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Brittany Ferries services resumedUpdate - Monday 1st OctoberWe are pleased to announce that industrial action is over and services will resume on Tuesday afternoon. http://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/routes/sailing-updates Good, but it will be interesting to see what the changes make to the services.Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I wonder how much of a real settlement this is and how much is the need to get back to work after 2 weeks without pay...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
just john Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 [quote user="Frederick"][quote user="Chancer"] Its a very sought after shift pattern and very few if any companies can still afford to operate it.You can get effectively a 3 week holiday by taking only one of the 5 weeks entitlement, taken to its limits you could work only 5 weeks in the first 20 weeks of the year by using all your holiday entitlement and then work only 16 of the remaining 32 weeks. Working only 21 weeks of the year its not hard to find staff!!And then you add in the sickness leave which in most syndicalised companies is seen as a perk that should be used in full and you can see why companies working in an open competitive market can no longer afford such shift patterns.[/quote]They could do with somone like the Greek Cypriot owner of the Easygroup Stelios to come up with a ferry or two in competition. Perhaps they then would think twice about messing about the 85% of their customers who live on the UK side that they dont care about . Its the Cornish shell fish and crab fishermen I feef for who export to France as they cant store their catch while these BF crew members play silly Bu***rs [/quote]Absolutely, if only there was an Easygroup ferry on the western routes!, but nobody stays in business to loose money; Truckers, who were complaining when returning on the jam packed LD Le Havre crossing, consensus was that Brittany are losing too much money and whilst being currently supported by the owners, have to get their act together in light of reducing custom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Two weeks without pay? I seem to think that french strikers do get paid. Have I misremembered? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 From what I have read on bfenthusiasts forum the situation is complicated because after a few wildcat strikes the staff were 'locked out' by management until an agreement was reached.It seems there could be a court case about the pay for the down period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwmcn Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 Steve, Oh joy, I can now have some salad nicoise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cendrillon Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 yeah! we now have a booking, ferry from St Malo on Friday. Long drive from Bilbao but there you go, we were coming here anyway and have had an exciting time. Will have a stop-over at the Fr. homestead en-route. Will arrive in U.K. only two days late in our case so could have been worse.[:)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted October 1, 2012 Share Posted October 1, 2012 I came in half way through the South Today feature about BF but I think they are talking about cutting back on Portsmouth Caen crossings, to just two a day, and the Portsmouth St Malo boat will have two midweek days in port in the winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederick Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 What have the French union achieved by calling their industrial action that messed us all about ? Nothing as far as I can see they now have to work some more of their many days off within their pay package ... It appears the city of Portsmouth lost about £400.000 in the first week of the strike alone due to the ferries being tied up in France . Thats a loss to the Council Tax Payers of the city add to that the losses the passengers and freight carriers suffered and its telephone numbers ..I think BF will have lost the goodwill of many of their customers over this they will have to work hard to get it back Jacking up the fares will not help should they decide they now need to recover their strike losses . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russethouse Posted October 2, 2012 Share Posted October 2, 2012 From what was said on the later local news, staff will work 11 days extra without additional pay and although there wont be redundancies some staff who leave will not be replaced.There was mention of 50,000 people being affected.......we like to have a long weekend or two in France via BF, next year I think we might try and stay in the UK..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwmcn Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 Well, that seems to be that then. I guess everybody got home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cendrillon Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 "We had an eight hour drive to Calais (in good conditions) and were on a P&O ferry within an hour. The crossing was free and we are due to get a refund the Caen ferry trip.The meal on the P&O boat was better than we would have got in the cluster of restaurants around the square in Ouistreham. Gus"Try le Normandie Hotel-Restaurant, Ouistreham, we have had good meals there on our way back before taking the overnight ferry from Caen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwmcn Posted October 13, 2012 Share Posted October 13, 2012 gus, we might try le Normandy next summer because, as I said earlier, the Broche D'Argent has gone downhill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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