George S. May Business Blog

British Airways asks employees to work for free

In a desperate move to try to recover from their worst annual loss of over $600m this fiscal year, British Airways has asked its 40,000 or so employees to help battle the “tough market conditions” by working for free. Coming on the heels of a 2,000 employee job slicing British Airways will ask employees to either take a 1-4 week unpaid leave, or come to work for no pay during that time span.

British Airways CEO Willie Walsh (left) took the “initiative” and said he would renounce his salary for the month of July.

But don’t expect such a heroic move to be taken as so, as Big Willie makes more in a month than most British Airways employees make in a year! Willie Walsh makes £735,000+ per year, or £61,000 per month. A basic salary, just for reference, at British Airways is £11,000 yearly.

I can’t imagine that many people will actually come into work for no pay. In fact, if I were in the position of a British Airways low-level employee, I would already be investigating the possibility of temp employment. It is all fine and dandy for a CEO of an airline company to say he’ll work for a month without pay, but the bottom line is, that month of pay he missed, is not hurting him. He is not living paycheck to paycheck. When you miss a month of pay at his level, well the family isn’t going for their annual three week vacation in Fiji… maybe. When you miss a month’s worth of paychecks working for under 20k a year, do you know what happens? They cut lights off and bill collectors start calling. Nice try Willie.

Oh and good luck dealing with the unions. I’m sure they’re going to be all over this one.

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