Oh well, into the fray.
Well done Lurker. Excellent posts. I am amazed that after your careful and repeated explanations, there are some here who still don't understand the legal thrust of the case. As I have said before somewhere in this thread, it is very unusual for employees to take out an injunction against an employer, it is normally the employer asking the employees via an injunction NOT to do something. We have seen before over OpenSkies that BA are very willing to use injunctions to prevent IA. How will they use this weapon now when they themselves are under the cosh?
A friend of mine who attended the hearing on the 5th November gave some valuable insight into how the judge put off the full hearing until February.
He said that BA's legal team were poorly briefed and unprepared, whereas QC John Hendy presented the case on behalf of UNITE "brilliantly" in his words. The problem for BA is that most of its management do not go back more than ten years due to the high turnover of personnel. Hendy was able to hark back to the 70's and refer to collective agreements laid in stone then, which the BA legal team were unaware of.
Although there are many here cheering on Willie Walsh, you will soon see that he is leading BA into a legal blind alley and a damaging strike. Unfortunately BA does not appear to be run for the benefit of its shareholders at the moment, just someone's personal agenda.