RunningRidges - Excellent points well made. In the 1980s BA also faced an “existential crisis” with massive numbers cuts and changes to T&Cs across the board. It was successfully handled because under the leadership of Mark Young, who was BALPA General Sec at the time. Young was a tough, working class street-fighting Geordie, once a Communist but the person who had pulled the rug from under the Communists in a ballot rigging scandal at the Electrical Trades Union (EETPU).
As leader of ALL the TUs on a joint negotiation he pushed through a programme whereby there were NO compulsory redundancies BUT a lot of voluntary ones, plus T&C changes. A critical aspect was allowing BA to redeployment of ANY employee to a different role, but with protected pay. So surplus pilots ended up as cabin crew, doing office jobs, loaders, securty guards or whatever. When the storm had passed, they were recalled to where new pilot vacancies were.
(As an aside, having been dragged kicking and screaming from the RHS on a VC10 to the rear galley on a 707 or whatever, some found that having no responsibility but most of their normal income plus being generally a straight minority male working with lots of female CC on LH schedules wasn’t too much of a bad deal, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming back…).
Anyway the point is that proposing and publicising a massive and drastic action, and recognizing that it’s an all-employees crisis is likely to be the only possible way to shield from the predatory actions of the £$%&*s now running the company.
See also
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/b...nity-66znfh7rr
Petition signed and watching with huge concern from the sidelines