British Airways - CC Industrial Relations Mk V

[La Pouquelaye]

I think the (long-term) result will be gotterdamerung, or "a twilight of the gods", as Richard Wagner had it. In other words, mortal damage to both parties.

BASSA, in my opinion, seems to be behaving like a mortally wounded animal: threshing around, clawing and biting at anything and anyone near it.

BA, on the other hand, knows that it is haemorrhaging money; that is accepted by everybody. It has enormous commitments to its pension fund, to institutional investors, to all of its employees - and to the nation. It cannot be seen to fail or to be "beaten" by one union: BASSA.

I do not think that HM Government will intervene in any way. The British public, now struggling under the load of £178 billions' worth of public debt incurred by bailing out the banks last year, would not tolerate it. In any case, EU regulations prevent that.

Don't forget that a general election must be called within the next five months at the very most. The British electorate would not support a political party that proposed to throw good money after bad, so to speak.

If you want my personal opinion (FWIW), in the longer term (i.e. beyond next Sunday night) BASSA will be forced under, and BA management will take decisive control of the company and the way in which it will be managed.

I do not say that with any relish whatsoever. I know that most of my postings on this and the earlier thread are anti-BASSA, but I have lived in two different countries where the militant trade unions thought that they were in charge of the various enterprises and not the management.

It is quite true that I could now be described as a "capitalist lackey", but in the late 'sixties and the 'seventies I was a very militant shop steward - in the civil aviation business, strangely enough. The vagaries of life can be very interesting.

The bottom line is that if BASSA persists in trying to run - and to ruin - BA it will mean the destruction of the livelihoods and the futures of thousands of men women and children.

These people will not necessarily just be BASSA members and their families, but members of all the other BA-related unions, BA contractors and their employees and their families, BA employees and their families at overseas stations, and people working at airports around the globe and their families.

The list is endless.

I wish all of you, personally, the very best of luck, and I extend my genuine and fervent hope that - whatever happens - you and yours survive that gotterdamerung I referred to earlier.