How is BASSA organised at ground level? My father was a longtime member of a union, and he always maintained that everyone should go to, and vote, at local ground level meetings, otherwise union policy got chosen by the activists, who were nearly always at the militant end. Also, reps got chosen by the activists, who became a law unto themselves. If BASSA have ground level meetings, it is there the moderates should take back the union, not by going off and starting another, which a little way down the line could go the same way.
My OH is a BA engineer who has seen job losses and restructuring, and is concerned as to filling the hole in the pension scheme. CC have got to make some sacrifices, the crew level being an obvious one, especially as LGW already operate those levels. Other sections have made sacrifices, CC may be the public face of the company, but they are not the whole company. They have to share the pain. It's because they don't seem to be willing to do that there are volunteers to help out should they strike.
I think newfleet is also going to happen, BASSA needs to get the best deal for legacy CC, and also a decent deal for newfleet, who presumably will also be unionised? A bit more realism a lot earlier could have seen a satisfactory outcome without the glare of publicity and panicking passengers into booking elsewhere. And if BA management were intransigent even then, CC would have had a much better public case in
PR terms.