Originally Posted by bluepilot
the BACON pilot issue was a non starter-----this is exactly what happened at BACON. you made an offer to only a part of the workforce (RJ100 Pilots only), the BACON cc had no choice but to reject the offer as the pilot force must stick together. The offer you made was near as damn it worthless.
Thats a rather naive viewpoint. Full access to the BA seniority list from BACX pilots would never have been tolerated by BA. The BACCs mandate was to protect the interests of BA pilots, nobody else. The transfer of the RJs broke our Scope agreement and as such the BACC had some bargaining power with BA, firstly to secure secondee positions for us, secondly to secure access to the BA list for the RJ pilots. If you think they ever had it within their gift to gain access to all BACX pilots then you are dreaming. It was a quid pro quo - the RJ was the only fleet with secondees so only the RJ fleet got the mainline seniority. The rather naive BACX CC thought that if they stamped their feet and refused to accept seniority for the RJ pilots then the secondments wouldn't happen. I think history is the best judge of how successful they were.
BUT did you realise the concequences of these actions? the ex Airuk / KLMuk pilots were involved in a bitter dispute with KLM over discrimination etc. The managment there simple said "look in your own back yard at BA and BACON", made our fight even harder!!!
Sorry but you can't pin the blame for KLMs actions on BA.
Now if you were to insist that the BA Cityflyer pilots should be bought into the BA fold as well as the OS pilots THEN you would be shouting a far more credible cry.
The strike is not about Open Skies, it is about Schedule K, our Scope agreement. Open Skies breaks it, Cityflyer does not. You cannot take action against a broken agreement if the agreement hasn't been broken. The RJ100 issue was done and dusted with the last scope rewrite.