I can't see the relevance in comparing the agreements of your wive's profession with ours.
The Working Time Regulations (i.e. the law of the land) stipulate that workers must have at least eleven clear hours rest between shifts. Mrs CCC (a surgeon) often finishes her work an hour or two later than the scheduled time.
She has to start her next shift according to her timetable. With a curtailed break (which includes travelling from and back to her hospital) she may not be refreshed and fully rested.
If she does not, patients already prepared for surgery may have their long-awaited operations postponed or even cancelled.
That's life in the "real world".
On the other hand, cabin crew have not only a legal and contractual entitlement to the eleven hours stipulated in the Working Time Regulations but also a further seven hours. Cabin crew do not have to make themselves a meal: all that is provided for them. That is set in stone.
If BA cabin crew do not get their 18 hours rest flights can and have been cancelled, resulting in severe inconvenience for hundreds of passengers.
It is this innate inability of BASSA-led cabin crew to see further than the ends of their own noses (if that far) that has led to this prolonged and over-extended strike.
The sooner the PCCC is recognised by British Airways the better. No matter what it does, no matter what mistakes it may make, it cannot be any worse than the current crew representative body.
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I am a BA employee who wants a quick and equitable settlement of this dispute.