Easyme - Im sorry, but are you on one side saying that you think voting yes for this "deal" is the way to go, and then on the other hand you are saying "Do I think we should split the pilot community up? definitely not. I think we should all be unionized and have one negotiating team for the whole community." ?? Then you are also claiming that "and certainly not bad enough (the pay deal. my remark) to strike over".
I think, and its just a thought, a quite scary one too, that this way of looking at our situation is exactly what will eventually get us down on our knees and take away the last bit of respect that we, ourselves, and our industry leaders have left for us. This is NOT about the 4% or 5% or whatever would be negotiated at this stage. It is about the arrogance and total lack of respect that our company has showed towards us and BALPA in the past 6 months. Im talking about how the MAD base contracts has been dealt with, all the problems our colleagues are still facing in MXP and ORY, years after the bases have been opened. Im talking about the use, or should I say abuse of the recent crew survey?
I truly believe that now is the time to say no. Now is the battle a lot of people are referring to as "keep the powder dry for the real battle". If not now, then you can keep that powder dry for as long as youŽd like, because there will be no more battles to fight.
Local contracts will follow, splitting up the union making it impossible to negotiate ANYTHING! Random rostering WILL follow. We have a CEO who have made statements along the line of "There must be other ways of doing this" ie other ways to roster us. Before someone says "Yea, but if that happens THEN my powder will be dry for a battle" - Sorry....then it will be too late. We will have local contracts and a weaker union. Once the "continent" is split into local bases it will be a piece of cake to push T&Cs down to lows never seen before in a British (ex British by then) company.
Based in The UK? Watch as they will start over-crewing continental bases and then operating the "extra" crew in to the UK bases, doing your job, for less money, less pension (no pension??), no sick pay, no loss of licence etc etc. Make people redundant on UK contracts? The other base/company can operate the routes instead. Each base/country will be a seperate company so the UK employment laws are worth zero for us and so will BALPA be. They can not negotiate for these new "companies".
Good luck to all of us.