Ancient Observer
Paxboy - it's more like a ball of string, and who has control of it, than a pendulum.
Good analogy.
One of the frustrations as a by-stander in this dispute is that many staff's attitudes at BA appear not to have changed much since they were in the Civil Service.
Ah, I know what you mean. Twenty years after the privatisation of British Telecom - there were still some old thinkers in there (not necessarily 'old' people!) who thought that BT deserved to get the business - because they were BT. Corporate culture does not change quickly.
Over time, we learnt that by and large, managers got the TUs that they deserved, and many in manufacturing began improving their managers, by both removing the bad ones and properly training their replacements.
Yes, I agree 100%.
Only once did I see it reported that Thatcher complained about weak British mgmt.