There's an article on the PCCC on FT.com
FT.com / UK / Society - Alternative group flies in face of Unite
One is a 44-year-old mother of three who lives near Heathrow.
Another is 36, lives close to Gatwick, and likes to sketch landscapes in her spare time.
Together, they have almost 32 years of experience as British Airways cabin crew employees.
And this Saturday, when most of their 12,000 colleagues have voted to walk out in the first BA strike in almost 13 years, both women are planning to cross the picket lines and head into work.
They have brought their BA staff identity cards to an interview with the FT to verify their credentials, but neither is willing to allow her real name to be published.
"For our own protection and for our families' safety, that's what we have to do at the moment," says "Frieda", who has been with BA for 12 years, based at Gatwick.
She and "Suzy", a BA veteran of almost 20 years who works from Heathrow, were both longstanding union members at the airline.
But in the middle of last year, as the Unite union was discussing BA's controversial move to cut the number of cabin crew on most long-distance flights by at least one, they say they grew unhappy with the union's handling of the dispute.
By December, when the union won overwhelming support in a ballot for industrial action and threatened a 12-day strike over Christmas - eventually thwarted by BA legal action - they and four others got together to set up the Professional Cabin Crew Council, a group which claims to offer a more moderate alternative to Unite.
"We thought Unite was leading us down the path to ruin," says Suzy. "People didn't vote to go off work for 12 days."
There was also, the women claim, an intimidating level of aggression from colleagues directed towards anyone opposing the union, which subsequently won another ballot authorising this week's planned walk-out, prompting BA to train pilots and other volunteers to replace striking workers.
"There have been threats on cabin crew chat rooms warning pilots who had volunteered to be careful of the food they were served on board flights once they went back to flying," says Frieda. "People are scared."