EI staff stealing says boss

Mc Love

Was talking to some crew today and they said that there might be a chance some of the copies will somehow manage to fall off the plane. Crew were disgusted to be selling it on board.

Rutter himself doesn't have such a rosy history
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1358172/Amex-chief-accused-of-bullying-has-vanished.html

Jamie2k9

The leak has unions written all over it. I can see why management could be tempted but given its not the first leak in recent weeks and tensions with unions most recenly letters delivered to staff allegedly.

As for stealing, it happens no point in saying it doesn’t so yes they should do whatever is needed to stop it. I do think millions is a very vague figure and probably includes missing items at out stations. Given the anount of lost bags and long time to re-unite them with owners there could potentially be lots of opportunities to steel.

Management should have handled it much better but equally those responsible for leaking it are equally as bad.

This wont do as much PR damage as the immigration scandal did.

Tenger

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

The leak has unions written all over it. I can see why management could be tempted but given its not the first leak in recent weeks and tensions with unions most recenly letters delivered to staff allegedly.
.............
.............
Management should have handled it much better but equally those responsible for leaking it are equally as bad......

I disagree. The tone is very much as if it was an interview with the COO. At no point does the article say that EI were asked to comment. Which is what normally happens when damaging info is leaked.
I feel that a union leak would be more along the lines of “EI chiefs accused staff of long running theft and pilferage”


As for this scenario appearing in 3rd level classes....a mate (who was ex-EI at the time) was in DBS doing a MSc in Business and HR in 2006 or 2007. One of the modules examined EI during the Willie Walsh as CEO years.
Module was titled ‘How to destroy a brand’

AmberGold

Bussywussy wrote: »

Lots of cabin crew being asked by pax today about the article...shameful stuff


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1358172/Amex-chief-accused-of-bullying-has-vanished.html

Hard to believe this individual is still clambering around the top echelon’s of the corporate world.

nim1bdeh38l2cw

Tenger wrote: »

As for this scenario appearing in 3rd level classes....a mate (who was ex-EI at the time) was in DBS doing a MSc in Business and HR in 2006 or 2007. One of the modules examined EI during the Willie Walsh as CEO years.
Module was titled ‘How to destroy a brand’

There is not, and never has been, a module entitled "How to destroy a brand" as part of any program in DBS. There is not, and never has been, an MSc program entitled "Business and HR" in DBS.

Idbatterim

Total and utter scum bags. Aer Lingus should be planting stuff on planes and waiting for the scum to take it, then sack them !

Victor

Locker10a wrote: »

What I can’t fathom is why he/they went to the media with this!

It could as easily have been the unions or individual staff members.

Locker10a

Idbatterim wrote: »

Total and utter scum bags. Aer Lingus should be planting stuff on planes and waiting for the scum to take it, then sack them !

A previous airline I worked for had a similar issue, high value duty free was going missing. The airline suspected crew, an in-depth investigation unveiled it was the catering guys, who load the carts overnight, one of them had converted his garage into the a mini sort of Brown Thomas front hall with shelves of perfumes and cosmetics galore. He was operating a little black market store from his garage. Obviously he wasn’t the only one in on it. I can’t remember how they were caught but a few guys got prison for it.
Meanwhile at the same airline the cash from onboard sales was mysteriously disappearing. Again the finger was pointed at crew. CCTV over the safe where crew deposited the cash bags soon revealed the cleaners would come in at night, use the flexible pipe of the hoover to suction onto the plastic cash bags and fish them out !!! I’m sure EI will crack down on this and figure it out, but it was totally unnecessary to publish such an article

Locker10a

Victor wrote: »

It could as easily have been the unions or individual staff members.

It’s well known the Irish Independent and Aer Lingus have a cosy relationship. It’s often EI management use the independent to get across a certain story or headline

Stovepipe

First of all, how on earth would a union or an individual staff member get a front page of the leading Sunday newspaper, which is renowned for it's anti-union attitude, without going through the editor? A casual "leak" wouldn't get past the most junior sub-editor. This smells of a deliberate push from on high, to rubbish the union (especially the article on the front page of the business supplement), when things aren't going management's way.They wouldn't dare try this on with the pilots so it's easier to attack the ground ops people. You will also notice that this article came out after the busiest time of the year, the Summer schedule, has been dealt with. They wouldn't have dared to push something like this in June.

Stovepipe

Locker10a wrote: »

It’s well known the Irish Independent and Aer Lingus have a cosy relationship. It’s often EI management use the independent to get across a certain story or headline

The Indo, especially the daily edition, regards union bashing in Aer Lingus as normal jogging and they sell the rag on the aircraft, which suits both sides of the coin. This was stopped one time for about two months until the paper apologised to EI for some error it had made and normal service resumed. The company essentially disregards SIPTU unless it absolutely has no choice but to deal with them.

Stovepipe

Locker10a wrote: »

A previous airline I worked for had a similar issue, high value duty free was going missing. The airline suspected crew, an in-depth investigation unveiled it was the catering guys, who load the carts overnight, one of them had converted his garage into the a mini sort of Brown Thomas front hall with shelves of perfumes and cosmetics galore. He was operating a little black market store from his garage. Obviously he wasn’t the only one in on it. I can’t remember how they were caught but a few guys got prison for it.
Meanwhile at the same airline the cash from onboard sales was mysteriously disappearing. Again the finger was pointed at crew. CCTV over the safe where crew deposited the cash bags soon revealed the cleaners would come in at night, use the flexible pipe of the hoover to suction onto the plastic cash bags and fish them out !!! I’m sure EI will crack down on this and figure it out, but it was totally unnecessary to publish such an article

The hoover theft was also being done on the DAA charity boxes, sucking up notes.

Stovepipe

another point: EI recently changed over from a Lost property office to a third party system where you now have to pay to get your lost property back. It was common for ground staff to find things like laptops, phones, passports, ID cards and a host of other things left behind on the aircraft and they would bring them to LP and log them in and if they were not claimed, the staff member would be notified and could keep the stuff. Some unscrupulous types stole the found items from the aircraft but they were often caught, especially one genius who switched on a laptop and was traced by it's owner looking at the thief via the webcam. What has happened now is that the goodwill generated by EI staff making the effort to get stuff up to LP to get it back to the owner has now evaporated and staff don't make the effort to bring the lost stuff up any more. The redcaps (load supervisors) will bring the stuff up, if they have time, but that's not always the case. That's what happens when you keep accusing the frontline staff of being thieves.

Glen Immal

Was in an employees house once and was served tea from a rather elegant Aer Lingus teapot!

Jamie2k9

Stovepipe wrote: »

First of all, how on earth would a union or an individual staff member get a front page of the leading Sunday newspaper, which is renowned for it's anti-union attitude, without going through the editor? A casual "leak" wouldn't get past the most junior sub-editor. This smells of a deliberate push from on high, to rubbish the union (especially the article on the front page of the business supplement), when things aren't going management's way.They wouldn't dare try this on with the pilots so it's easier to attack the ground ops people. You will also notice that this article came out after the busiest time of the year, the Summer schedule, has been dealt with. They wouldn't have dared to push something like this in June.

Front pages are based on what stories sell, the headline along on this article is very click bate. There hasn't been any significant news stories this week.

orionm_73

Glen Immal wrote: »

Was in an employees house once and was served tea from a rather elegant Aer Lingus teapot!

Did EI ever have elegant tea pots? Can only remember plain stainless steel ones.

markpb

Am I the only one thinking the reason AL went to the press about this was to head off the inevitable complaints that will come from the unions about the security cameras in staff areas. Now everyone knows the reason so, if the unions object, they’re protecting the thieves. If this story hadn’t come out first, we’d get a press cycle driven by the unions about how the new security regime is oppressing their members.

Bussywussy

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

There hasn't been any significant news stories this week.

Are you on drugs????

I'll name 1...highest ever number of hospital overcrowding figures for November

Jamie2k9

Bussywussy wrote: »

Are you on drugs????

I'll name 1...highest ever number of hospital overcrowding figures for November

Yeah as I said not major news!

Its an eye catching headline so good for front page.

Colonel Claptrap

Tenger wrote: »

As for this scenario appearing in 3rd level classes....a mate (who was ex-EI at the time) was in DBS doing a MSc in Business and HR in 2006 or 2007. One of the modules examined EI during the Willie Walsh as CEO years.
Module was titled ‘How to destroy a brand’

Come on, you made this up.

Henry Ford III

Mc Love wrote:

Rutter himself doesn't have such a rosy history

Was he ever found guilty? Allegations can be very cheap.

Henry Ford III

If there's a lot of pilfering going on I think it's ok to attempt to find the culprits. The majority of Aer Lingus staff have nothing to fear. The press release was rather clumsy admittedly.

Jack1985

Henry Ford III wrote: »

Was he ever found guilty? Allegations can be very cheap.

He settled with the woman and fled the country FFS !

Walter E GO

Glen Immal wrote: »

Was in an employees house once and was served tea from a rather elegant Aer Lingus teapot!

I work for a different aircraft company and staff are offered presents from
the companies branded catalogue at Christmas or Company Anniversaries or even just staff reaching milestone years in service. Nothing unusual in that.

TCM

My neighbour has an Airbus A320 in his back garden. I was wondering where he'd gotten it?

TCM

Henry Ford III wrote:

Was he ever found guilty? Allegations can be very cheap.

Are u kiddin. Did u read the article.

zell12

RTE - Aer Lingus to increase CCTV monitoring of staff
TheJournal - Union to contact Aer Lingus over roll-out of CCTV in staff areas due to missing stock
SIPTU members in Aer Lingus outraged at media report

Nijmegen

It is not unusual for pilfering to go on in any organization that moves significant quantities of consumer goods. What this smacks of is industrial relations maneuvering - as markpb points out, if EI management just went and rolled out new security measures there would be indignant stories about that too. At the same time, the maneuver I'd say could backfire a bit as it smacks of tarring everyone with the same brush rather than taking a nuanced approach (pilfering harms all the good staff as well as the business, we want to root out these folks etc etc). In any event it speaks to the dysfunction that can occur in any organization where staff and management militantly feel their interests are divergent.

Colonel Claptrap

Nijmegen wrote: »

It is not unusual for pilfering to go on in any organization that moves significant quantities of consumer goods. What this smacks of is industrial relations maneuvering - as markpb points out, if EI management just went and rolled out new security measures there would be indignant stories about that too. At the same time, the maneuver I'd say could backfire a bit as it smacks of tarring everyone with the same brush rather than taking a nuanced approach (pilfering harms all the good staff as well as the business, we want to root out these folks etc etc). In any event it speaks to the dysfunction that can occur in any organization where staff and management militantly feel their interests are divergent.

If reports are true we're not just talking about pilfering. If goods valued in the millions are going missing, then it sounds well organised and systemic.

Note that twice the COO specifically said management are not tarring everyone with the same brush. It's bizarre to see so many people taking offense to his comments on social media. Do they even work there? If they do, are they part of the 0.01% who are stealing? Because that's who he specifically mentions.

If my workmates were stealing millions from customers, staff, sub-contractors, and the company then I'd be demanding cameras and security.

The work environment just sounds toxic.

If unions AND management are using this to further other agendas, then shame on them. It still doesn't excuse stealing.

basill

The work environment just sounds toxic.

You summed it up. TOXIC with a capital T.