I appreciate what your saying GNL, however I disagree strongly.
Firstly this is still a negotiation. The company have sent us a letter stating the reasons for their current offer. BALPA have done their research too.
An agreement will be forthcoming, of that I'm sure. It just depends how much resolve we wish to use to achieve a deal we are happy with.
Nobody wants to send the company bust but neither are we willing to be taken advantage of. The managers also do not want the company to go bust and are not going be stubborn enough to let it. Remember they are accountable to shareholders etc etc. The latest letter from MS is purely to scare us, a bit of spin if you like. He's omitted quite a lot from it and if he was to brief the shareholders with that attitude we woudln't have any.
A deal has to be agreeable to both sides. So far what has been offered is agreeable to one side only. They are giving us nothing. What they give with one hand they are taking away with the other. From our side of the fence our productivity has gone up on average 8% with nothing to show for it.
Their is a risk in everything, the next stage is brinkmanship. He who breaks first loses. The question is will the management let the company go bust for the sake of around 3.5% on salary and 3% on pension? It's not as if we're being greedy. We would just like to be paid the average market wage.
Adopting your philosophy will have us being paid very poorly whilst our managers get paid huge bonuses for profit in the company that we will not get a share in.