Dear Autofeather,
I'm glad you changed the tone of your reply. I'm afraid though we still disagree on the facts but we can go round and round about that all night long.
On your last question though.
This I find very difficult. First of all as previously stated I sincerely hope you get a good and fair deal.
If Balpa cannot get a deal with KLM and has to resort to industrial action, then yes, I fully expect the VNV to advise it's members to support that action. I will be the first to picket!!!
It all depends on the deal the UK pilots want though. Depending on the demands. I gave an example of what I thought would be fair. I could be that you have even more demands, demands I did not think about and that are still fair.
However!! It could be that UK pilots have demands that are to the detriment of KLM pilots. In that case, unfortunately it would be BALPA againt VNV. Of course I would side with VNV (let their be no misunderstanding, BALPA has an obligation to you, VNV to dutch pilots). Simirlarly, BALPA represents alot of british pilots, sometimes even competing pilots,how do the different groups deal with that. As an american example look at AA and TWA. One was represented by an in house union and the other one by ALPA. How did all the other US airlines react when they had a disagreement??
I heard an example of the recent request from the VNV to back the dutch CHC pilots by british pilots. However the beef was between the CHC pilots and their company. Had that beef been between the dutch CHC pilots and for example british pilots that would have been completely different.
I really hope you can see the difference.
I really do back any problems you have with KLM, however when you start making demands that are detrimental to klm pilots, that's an entirly diferent case. then both unions would fight for the best posible deal for their own members. How could they possibly request each other assistence in an industrialaction that would adversely affect it's own members.
To think or expect otherwise is naief.
Greetings