Although I am not a BA pilot or a pilot I have been following this thread with interest and listening to the Podcasts over at BA Plane BA Pilot to get an idea of BALPA's side of things.
On a side issue but perhaps relevant to this dispute, a guy from American Airlines on the podcasts said that the American Unions got their fingers burnt by letting AA hive off some work to a smaller carrier which has now grown to about 300 aircraft across the USA. He made the point that open skies could do the same thing. A point that I think he didn't mention was that AA would not be able to do these routes effectivly and compete with the Southwests of this world as their costbase is too high. Is BA trying to do the same to pre empt a low cost long haul carrier from doing this out of Europe??