HiFlyer14,
I am aware that you now seem realise that a horse has been allowed to bolt from the stables, so don't take what follows as personal criticism ....
..... but I don't really see what more we (as individuals) could have done.
We cannot be responsible for their behaviour.
Well, to be brutally honest, you (not individually, but as a cabin crew group) are all
ultimately responsible. TorC has nailed it and is acknowledging that a good chunk of BASSA's members should have
done more, long ago. If there really are, as we hope, a good number of clear-thinking, reasoning people amongst the BASSA membership then you should have thought more about the 'types' that you voted for in your BASSA hierarchy. It is too easy to let the 'noisy' climbers make their way into positions of responsibility in your union - perhaps you hoped/expected that the historical 'norms' and behaviour of the past would just allow BASSA to get away with its unreasonable demands and behaviour. Unfortunately that has backfired and the chickens have now come home to roost.
You have 2 major problems - the first is surviving the knife that is about to come carving through your livelihoods, and if you survive that, the second is sorting out the BASSA leadership. The latter problem is made more difficult because those self same 'leaders' (
bad use of that word) have just decided (without a quorum or valid vote, I think), to delay any elections for posts in that hierarchy! BASSA members need to check
very carefully the legality of what their 'leaders' did at Kempton the other day, with respect to delaying elections for BASSA posts. These people need removing quickly -
all of them. They are a cosy self-seeking bunch, who have well and truly screwed the pooch! Many of them may even jump for voluntary redundancy, leaving
you all to pick up the pieces!
You need to have hard-working, knowledgable, sensible folk at the helm - not selfish, noisy, illiterate, stuck-in-the-1970s table thumpers. It is up to you all to turn your union inside out and get it sorted. Out with
all the old, because if you don't, the entire thing will remain tainted for decades, maybe even forever.
If you won't or can't clear out the dead wood, then start a fresh
new union, with
new people and let the old union wither and die, as it should.