IIRC the BMI deal was about getting all pilots onto the MSL and avoid a S/H competitor operating out of LHR. That's how it was sold to us at the time.
BMI were being cast off by Lufthansa, the company from which BA derived most of it's operational back office flight planning software. Lufthansa couldn't make a profit with BMI out of LHR so I was amazed that anyone would even entertain that the silo tower management mentality of BA could make it profitable! My thoughts were outweighed by the vote so we paid BA a large sum in productivity savings to merge BMI into BA S/H. Part of the requirements for the deal from BA was for new contracts to be on 34 pay points not 24 due to the change in NRA. I'm really interested to understand where some people think nefarious deals were done? It was a take it or leave it requirement from the Company.
AFAIK there was no choice but to accept the new contract terms as 34 pay points. Much the same as the changes in pension schemes it was required by the company. Interestingly though I also seem to remember that the pension, money purchase, is STILL based on the PP24 scales thus giving a substantive boost to the defined benefit pension at the end of your career.
However it's all irrelevant as we all appeared at the top of the tree with no investment or work to achieve it so it's understandable to a
tiny minority that they should ave everything we have and that we are blocking their careers by selfishly existing!