Mr777
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...If this is the case, the fact remains that they will at some point have to say to us "we recommend you accept this offer"...which...
That's what I was trying to say (badly) with the statement
"We believe this is/is not an acceptable offer - we urge you to think carefully and vote accordingly"
However it is dressed up, and whether the Union recommend it or not, it is down to us, the members, to vote for what we want.
The Union recommendation will be based, to a degree, on what they believe would be the result of a ballot on industrial action i.e. a feeling in the water of what we will vote for.
They (The Union) don't want to drag this on forever (quite rightly).
It will slightly defeat any logical reasoning if we vote no, the Management don't budge, then we we roll over on the ballot for industrail action i.e. vote yes to accept the same pay deal instead of striking.
This has happened before with the ATCO branch... a very strong vote to throw out the deal, then when the same deal came back, no one had the balls to actually strike and the vote was reversed with an equally strong vote the other way
Unfortunately, even though we have an above averag intelligence within NATS compared to 'normal' companies (this has been acknowledged by PB), people are still too scared to vote for what they know makes sense and will blindly believe management.
The Union, to be fair to them, need to wrap up negotitations - hell, we are whingeing about how long it is taking - the Union are stuck in the middle of a hard-nosed management and a weak but increasingly angry memebrship. The Union has to make a recommendation taking this into account and taking into account the many calls from people who are whingeing about how late the pay deal is.
At the end of the day, the best bet would be to go to ballot now, and for people to vote on the proposals for what they think, not for what anyone else thinks or recommends.
We have a weak membership, both the Union and the management know this. It actually makes the Unions job of negotiating harder!