Tony Woodley and his Unite Brothers are bemoaning the impact on democracy arising from the latest injunction which, in effect removes protection from those BA cabin crew taking strike action in March. I think the Union bosses will be waking up to the fact that UK law is a two edged sword. They are quite content to invoke obscure parts of employment law in order to expose any procedural error in cases of improper dismissal. Now, they must face up to the fact that they too are equally bound by the same laws to conduct strike ballots etc properly. Consequently, from this stand point, I have no difficulty in the learned Judge's decision yesterday afternoon. Indeed, it's a case of those who live by the (legal) sword dying by the (legal) sword.
So where does this leave all those BA cabin crew who chose to strike and who are now potentially stripped of their protection? Well, at first glance, it seems they are in jeopardy of being dismissed on the grounds they broke their employment contract by failing to report for work when required. The question arises will Mr Walsh press this point? If he does, then would dismissed cabin crew have a case against BASSA/Unite for failure to provide a "duty of care" when running the strike ballot and encouraging them to take industrial action? If this is so, can we see some enterprising law firm taking on a "pro bono" class action on before of sacked crew against the Union that has, it would seem, let them down so grievously? In this case, BA could be spared the trouble of pursuing BASSA/Unite for damages as the company might consider, in the long run, the removal of the cancer worth the loss of revenue. This would also leave its hands clean because one should never forget that many other groups of BA workers are also members of Unite.