...don't think public opinion really comes into this-they will be just as much against Barron and the board who have form on taking peoples' pensions and leaving them in the lurch as he did at Alstom
I'm afraid that you're living in even more of a fantasy world than some of the managers who posters here seem to enjoy maligning. It was one G. Brown MP who bugg***d-up the UK pensions industry by changing the tax regime, not the likes of Paul Barron or anyone else (although I'm
not defending the short-termism concept of "contribution holidays", etc.)
What's all this talk about not getting the public's sympathy??.......who gives a stuff......
Sadly, you've missed the point. It's irrelevant whether you or I or anyone else in NATS "gives a stuff" about public opinion. It's HMG that cares about it, and the plain truth is that at a time when the Government's rapidly losing control (not to mention its mind) the old political adage arises ~ cause a diversion and focus the public's gaze on something less sensitive.
Since we couldn't now muster enough military hardware or personnel to mount a parade in Whitehall, an old-fashioned military campaign's out of the question, so something closer to home would better suit.
Thus, if NATS operational staff take industrial action that causes disruption and inconvenience to thousands of travellers and pushes some of the weaker airlines over the brink, the tabloid press will catistigate us, the public will criticise us and the 49% Shareholder that just happens to be HMG, will shaft us. Don't forget also, the current lot in power is a supposedly worker-centric LABOUR lot; the alternative is the temporarily "touchy-feely" TORY lot: once back in power and sitting with a comfortable majority, they'll have even less sympathy for a highly-paid workforce like ours than Knackered Labour.
Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences...
Oh, and by the way, SRATCOH
did not come about because of industrial action (please file in the library under "Fiction"...).
During the strike of the early eighties, many NATS units were in fact, already working a SRATCOH-compliant five-watch roster anyway, and SRATCOH came in purely for safety reasons, in 1989 following a two-year cross-industry review involving a Committee that included IPMS, GATCO, NATS, the CAA, the AOA, NALGO, the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine and the DTI to name but a few.
