Abbey Road.
Hmmmm....you may be partially correct. If we're splitting hairs, I'd say it been a case of BA holding the door open and BASSA walking through it.
Neither side are "innocent" in this mess. It just BA are playing a calculated corporate game (not the touchy feely one we've all been used to) with the help of their American consultants (as history has shown they have had no idea how to do it on their own in the past). BASSA have stayed true to form, and susequently walked into BA's carefully laid out plan.
BA have done what a company looking to effect change to a "heavily unionised workforce resistant to change" (BA's words not mine) should do in this situation.
BASSA have done what a group of hardline millitants are expected to do in this situation.
Trade unionism needs to get into the 21st century. The Arthur Scargill style does not fit in with the modern day corporate culture. The BA suits can't deal with them face to face...true. So they get in a bunch of consultants who tell them how to remove them from the equation totally.
It's all politics at the end of the day. Notice Len McKlusky (the figurehead at one point) has vanished? I have. What's happened there eh?
I've actually seen more of Brian Boyd on the TV (McKlusky's opponent for the Gen Sec position) recently.
Boyd is more of a politician than McKlusky. A far better man to have been able to deal with this kind of situation and corporate game play.
Unfortunately Boyd is Amicus, so BASSA's favoured candidate (and of course "leader" of this whole mess) is McKlusky (TGWU).
There are other things going on here. Don't forget that.