cym
JT answered the part on tax. As to your last paragraph, I agree with some of it. I have spent most of my working life at BA (although it has been a while since I left), so I am only too aware of how BASSA operate, but in my old department, "I wish we stuck together like the cabin crew" (although I am sure we used a more industrial term for our flying colleagues on both sides of the door), was said many times.
I am a firm believer in people power (members) and it should be a bottom up arrangement. The ideas come from the floor and the reps put flesh onto those ideas and present them. It does appear that the relationship is the wrong way round. But that is only my opinion from afar.