Having not mentioned "market rates" ( it's been done to death on here) my point was to say if an individual wants a career as cabin crew it should be available. At no point did I mention what sort of reward for such a career an individual would want or need, which wasn't what I was getting at. Although taking a substantial amount of money away from current employees because of the way they are paid and is viewed by some as "above market rates" is in my view morally wrong as most people live to their means, ( it has to be said BA have not done this). To infer that just because current cabin crew should take a substantial pay cut to meet market rates is unrealistic, new entrant crew is a different matter.
I wonder how many people in any industry would accept up to a 50% pay cut to bring them in line with so called market rates, theoretically would anyone on here accept this ?
As in all industry career's are down to market forces and no business would last long if it thought other wise, my point was really about giving people a choice however long it may take to build a career as cabin crew.
I only compared a pilots career to cabin crew career because they are the only two groups of people who spend most of their working lives in the air. It maybe like comparing apples and oranges but they are both still fruit, apart from that the two jobs are fundamentally different but I believe both have an oportuity for a career path if that's what an individual wants. Nothing to do with being "owed a living" or pay, many many other industries offer career paths so why should this industry be so different.
Regardless of the law when balloting and the reasons that caused the ballot, part of the high feelings and passion are about the future and what could happen in the future, rightly or wrongly cabin crew think that if BA can disregard one part of the agreement then they will / could disregard others over time.
We could debate the naivety, lawlessness and futility of using a ballot partly to stop what could happen in the future until "pontius" becomes a "pilate" again, it wouldn't be the first time a group of unionised work force has done such a thing, as long as there is a tangible reason for a ballot there really is nothing that can be done to stop this in law.