By Alain Vanalderweireldt

The May 2016 social elections brought new teams of staff representatives who will be responsible for representing and defending their colleagues for the next four years. For BeCA, this is a great opportunity to ask a key question: how can we best represent pilots and the peculiarities of our profession within airlines?

To respond to that interrogation, we carried out an assessment of the past years and we came to an obvious conclusion: improved efficiency will require better centralisation and coordination on industrial topics between the pilot groups from all airlines. Indeed, apart from local union issues that are specific to each airline, many technical, legal and safety subjects are common to all pilot groups.

What is occurring today in an airline will happen soon in another one… or has already happened. What’s thus the use of reinventing the wheel every time on pilot issues (that are often badly covered under Belgian labour law) instead of working together, relying on the experience of representatives from other airlines and on IFALPA and ECA’s expertise?
Furthermore, when a company deals by itself with an issue that concerns us all, such as pension and qualification for professions with high responsibilities, the risk exists that the original intention, no matter how good it may be, might be misdirected either because of a lack of experience or by applying a local agenda to a collective issue.

For BeCA, the 2016 end of summer will be the opportunity to get together with BeCA Vice-Presidents, newly elected airline representatives and active members, with a view of responding to these questions and trying to establish better coordination, collaboration and closer links between BeCA and unions. BeCA already sent a letter to all newly elected representatives, inviting them to discuss pilot issues and a potential collaboration agreement. Together, let’s take pilot representation to a higher level!