Mr777
Oh, and £5 says the Prospect BEC bend over and accept this piece of sh*t anyway, and then recommend we accept it
Far be it for me to defend the Union - I think they have been poor in some areas - but the way it works is this:
Union negotiates with management - how hard they push, how much management flannel they swallow is another point entirely.
Management will always get to a point that they claim is a final offer - how far that is below their real 'keep it between ourselves' final offer is known only to them.
The Union take it to the membership for a vote.
Here's where it can go one of two ways.
The Union can give a recommendation of how they think we should vote - i.e. they will present us with the management offer and will state (not the words they will use but along these lines)
"We believe this is/is not an acceptable offer - we urge you to think carefully and vote accordingly"
It is then up to the membership - that's us - to vote in favour of acceptance or to reject it.
If we say yes, then negotiations are complete.
If we say no, then we go back to the table...
The Union will try to renegotiate, however management have already stated it is their final offer. This is a negotiation tactic that is not unique to NATS.
The point where it becomes unique to an individual company, dependant on the management is when they make their next move. They either budge a little in the hope of getting a yes vote to accept the new revised deal (having been seen to improve their 'final offer'), or they play hardball and take a gamble.
The gamble they take is the fact that if they do not budge, the next move for the Union is to ballot for industrial action. There is no other move the Union can take because members had already voted not to accept the offer.
Management would be gambling on the belief that we would not vote to take industrial action. Unfortunately that vote is our - the members - 'put up or shut up' point. If we don't vote to take industrial action, we are actually voting to accept the offer.
The question is (and the Union will have considered this as well - they have to as part of their negotiating strategy), how strong is the membership?
Considering that with the pensions issue over 30% of people could not even be bothered to vote in the first and only ballot, management are at this moment going to be pretty confident.
We did not even make them go back to the negotiating table as a result of the ballot because we (collectively) voted in favour of the proposals. We didn't even have the balls to vote no to see if we could push management a little harder.
Management now know that not only were we unwilling to push on the pensions issue - which actually has far bigger financial implications on the individual worker than the odd 1% here or there in this years pay award - but in fact 30% of us couldn't be bothered (some people were unable) to vote.
It is the same people who are making the most noise on this thread that did so on the pensions issue (myself included). At the end of the day, where did that lead? Nowhere.
I'm not saying that people will roll over on this issue, but management would, to be fair to them, be stupid not to take the gamble given our recent history.
Now I truly believe the Union have been shocking in their communications, particularly over the pensions. I also believe that they are too close to management on 'Working Together'
Oh, and £5 says the Prospect BEC bend over and accept this piece of sh*t anyway, and then recommend we accept it
However, at the end of the day they, the Union, have to work on what they think the members will do (prior to any ballots). Given that we voted to accept the pension issue straight off, and 30% of us didn't even vote, we sent a wrong, and very weak message to the Union. If we, the members, are seen to be weak (which we are), then the Union is also weak.