Was just trying out my conciliatory style of typing - I'd nb'd that!
Whilst this thread debates the CC negotiations, I must say your previous post outlining your situation was genuinely saddening. I find it very depressing that the world works so as to leave someone with the service you have had and the life you've supported with it in the position you find yourself when working for a "blue-chip".
However, your understandable concern about how close you are to insolvency on a monthly basis is not one that really reflects on the crew scenario. Those that are moaning the loudest are generally the WW crew who are taking home comfortably more than you are, from your description and are unjustifiably positioned against the rest of the market. The company has offered to allow them to make their savings (and thus protect their earnings) via productivity changes, a place where ample room exists for such things to be done. The fact that the finger always points to the front of the aeroplane in their case is an irrelevance as the pilot body (as have the ground staff) have made numerous changes to productivity and pay over the years so haven't anywhere near as much to give as the crew community.
Kudos, in a perverse way, to BASSA for protecting what they've had for so long but let's not forget that it's been achieved by setting up new contract after new group after new base, thus leaving their esteemed reps and conveners on the old contract and immunised from change in an ever decreasingly numbered clique.
To try and claim that this is some kind of fight over morals and what's right is disingenuous. You'll note that it's only BASSA and the anonymous warriors of CrewForum that feel the need to make less than oblique references to the head of IFCE as a murderous character of fiction, or feel that it's acceptable to impugn the personal reputation of that individual or the CEO. The traffic isn't two way in this respect.
It's not personal for the CEO, he's not driven by malice, hatred or, as so many suggest, greed. He's been given a mandate by the corporate shareholders and the board and, as it happens, is regarded as quite suited to the task at hand. To bring BA into the 21st century and make it continually fit for purpose. The cherished dream of so many angry CC that if he and the head of IFCE were to disappear then all this would magically go away is no more than that. The board will appoint the next man or woman to do the same and so on until it's achieved or it's disappeared into dust.
Sorry to repeat one of the heresies that drive so many CC in to a frenzy but you're not the only reason passengers choose BA to fly. You're amongst one of many and if they don't all mesh together, barring certain exclusive routes, they'll go elsewhere.
There's a degree of superiority and self-righteousness that I've never encountered anywhere else about this issue (some from the opposing points of view too). To think that you, we, us or any individual staff group is so pivotally important and, individually, irreplaceable is arrogance on a profoundly dysfunctional level.
Like it or not, LGW make it work, and well. The GPM scores are so close to those of LHR WW as to be statistically insignificant (although I've seen posters on CF suggest that these are being altered to suit BA's case). To use specious argument to say that, that's because it's a 777 only down there or that the time zones crossed mean it won't work really demonstrates that you've no good counter argument to the proposition and that there is a majority held mass-delusion that LHR (WW crew especially) can do what no other base/airline can do.
You may well succeed in seeing the airline go under if you can afford to strike for as long as you think it might be necessary. But, when your salary's stopped, you're endeavouring to subsist on hardship payments from the union, the company's sacking the first 2000 crew who won't cross a picket line (regardless of legality - after all it's a lot cheaper to tie it up in a damages-limited tribunal that might take years to conclude and have no requirement for BA to take you back on), and the comms to your house are stark, to the point and troubling, what will you do? Do you honestly think that you'll all be stood around Waterside waving off the guys at the top as they leave the building? How long can you stay out for? Do you know how long BA can stay without you for, given that not all of you will strike, some of you will sick-out through fear, some think a ballot may be enough (who knows, it may...) and some will cross the line out of fear in the end. Who's got bigger pockets when the bank comes asking for your mortgage payments? Might not be comfortable thoughts but they have to be considered when thinking about partaking in a strike.
Apart from the minority (and it is) of CC who are highly qualified in other arenas, other than the rather vulgar satisfaction of having achieved your aims, where do you honestly think your next job is going to come from, let alone one that pays as it does right now? Notwithstanding the general flooding of the job market with 40,000 or so ex-BA employees?
Or are the high unemployment figures just BA spin put out there by Willie's mates in the government too? Where is it acceptable to draw the line in the conspiracy theory?