Who do you trust more - BA Management or BACC? Tricky eh?
I've had multiple debates with Tandem, Carnage and others about scenarios like this. In my case it was the take-over of BRAL and the merging of BRAL/Brymon/Manx etc.
With hindsight, I think we are all fundamentally driven by what is best for us - no surprises there. Hence we don't like being argued with when others take a similar view from their own perspective. BA are extremely fortunate in having a strong CC, and also, actually, very accurate in distrusting all proposals from management. In this particular case, it may seem, to some, that a BACC attempting to dictate terms regarding recruitment and seniority for an separate airline, separate AOC which is nothing to do with BA pilots at all, and just happens to be wholly owned by their employer, is really going a bit too far. To juxtapose the BACON thing, the BACC refused to allow the BACON pilots onto the master seniority list. This was a wholly owned separate airline, separate AOC to BA - just like PL, except that BACC have now neatly reversed their position 180 degrees.
At first glance, this seems like union dinosaurs wanting to dictate everything to their employer, regardless of ethics, morals or whatever; and in some ways, I wonder if a strike as alluded to would actually be legal - almost akin to secondary picketing in some ways.
However, and it's a huge however, having been unfortunate enough to have worked for BA management, I entirely understand why BACC are behaving as they do, and I completely sympathise with, empathise with, and support everything Tandem has said. If you understand the way BA Management work, then you realise you can tell when they are lying - their lips move! Any follower of the long drawn out and painful story of BACON from the moment of its purchase to its premature demise (WW breaking his word) lets you see that PL is another strategic attempt to reduce BA Ts and Cs, and make more profit for shareholders and more bonuses for management at all levels. There is next to nothing else to cut or make more efficient, and so very predictably here we go with a long haul BACON Mk 2, only this time on a much grander scale.
Any doubters still reading at this stage need only look at what happened to the BA pension - I still think BACC lost that one, although perhaps it was unwinnable.
Those of you with EZY would do well to heed this, the Eastern Europeans are coming, from their point of view a 50% UK salary is a 3 fold payrise - bit of a no-brainer from their perspective don't you think? The next thing will be the EASA AOC, and after that - well, the bottom of the well is the limit! That's what happens when, to mix my metaphors, you allow the thin end of the wedge under the door.
BA have always been envied, and sometimes disliked for many silly reasons, but they DO stick together, and they CAN see an attempt to put the writing on the wall. The BA Ts and Cs used to be the gold standard of UK professional piloting, I don't think that's the case any more but it's still true to say that any erosion of their Ts and Cs wil hurt us all.
Good luck boys! (I don't think it'll be easy though!).
Noli Illigitimi Carborundum.