Joe, bluepilot, acbus1, may I totally agree with what you have said, particularly with your summary of Solo's replies. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to note how he never responds to the basic human issues, ie the ones relating to normal human ethical and principled behaviour. He won't explain why BA pilots can come and go and pick seats in their subsidiaries, without any equivalence for the subsidiary pilots. As someone mentioned, he won't comment on the rights and wrongs of BA cadets superceding BRAL pilots on BRAL aircraft - NOT THE RJ - and doing so whilst BRAL were having their scheme closed to new members so that the displaced guys missed the opportunity of a DB scheme. Everyone was told this applied to the BA cadets as well, but then 18 months later, apparently there had been a "mistake" and it turned out that the cadets had been wrongly (Ha) entered into the BA scheme anyway. Meanwhile a dozen or so BRAL guys missed their chance of the BRAL scheme - mind you, maybe they're better off at that! Solo doesn't care to comment on the business of Company asset stripping to benefit himself and his colleagues. In short, he is a fascist - "God is on the side of the big battalions" - "All power comes out of the barrel of a gun" - "How many divisions has the pope" etc and clearly on the side of similar statements which imply that might is right and has no responsibilities. He should remember how much sympathy that won for the authors of those statements when it all went wrong.
Yes yes, I know this is a pensions thread, but as I originally pointed out, it's also about the BRAL BACX pension and the history of the two companys. If Solo really believes that BRAL guys say what they REALLY think to mainline guys, any more than BARP FOs do to their skippers, he shows the same loose grip on reality as his inherent contradiction pointed out by bluepilot - ie criticise KLM, but justify the same actions from BA.
This will not end to anyone's profit but Willie's, and Solo and his ilk will be directly responsible for the total lack of sympathy when their effective T and C cut happens; they are also in large part responsible for the current situation by being more interested in shafting those who would be their friends than by looking ahead and listening to those who saw it all coming before they did!
It's very interesting to wonder what Solo's action might have been had he been faced with the stitch up offer allowing just a few onto the seniority list - I would wager that his position would neither have been ethically driven nor principled, unlike the BRAL personnel. BA have now got a boss even less principled than the pilot workforce, what goes around......comes around.
As for showing any disinterest when WW winds up BACON, (yes, highly probably given the huge overheads and inept management he foists on us) - well let's face it, to show any less interest or support than you have displayed so far would be impossible, so I doubt we'll notice the difference!
By the way, it's not a hatred of or for BA pilots, it's disbelief and disgust at the blatant ongoing ignorant self interest. I doubt you would recognise an ethic or a principle if one bit you on the @rse - and before you accuse me of theory, these principles and ethics affect peoples' LIVES, their careers, their families - and all Solo can do is prate blindly about BALPA, "our" aeroplanes, "our" work - pity BRAL didn't take the same view of "their" slots!!!