Must admit GS-Alpha may be onto something.
As he has said there's nothing to stop Willie sacking someone, illegally or otherwise, on day 1 of a Strike...and we know from experience that Willie is quite happy to use the Courts to spin things out and/or to bankrupt a Union...
So Day one of any IR Willie sacks the first 1000 no-shows, tells them "see you at the Tribunial" in 6/12/18 months and encourages everyone else to return to work....yep BA are 1000 CC down and as I understand IR the sacked workers can't be replaced for ?90 days - but he's after manpower reduction anyway....
I'm not spinning this from any management viewpoint, but it is the sort of info BALPA was pushing out prior to the Openlies fiasco...I do hope our colleagues get similar info from BASSA before putting pen to paper.
As for Willie's payrise, I too, reckon it sucks, and if it was announced to deliberately provoke the Unions then we really are seeing the man's true nature.