Poor old Crew Defence. No, seriously, these folk were prepared to put together the dosh for court action mainly because BASSA had failed to persuade Unite that there was merit in the case. BASSA had told them that BA couldn't take away staff travel and even if they did, the branch woud get it back, what was it, in five minutes ? Ok so one could say, more fool them for believing BASSA, but clearly some people are hurting more than others. If 6,000 staff went on strike, it follows that 6,000 staff have lost staff travel. I can only guess that the bulk of those 6,000 reckon either that no court action is likely to get returned, so stumping up a few hundred quid is chucking good money after bad, or reckon that Unite should be doing this, or are hanging out in the hope that Unite will succeed in negotiating the return of staff travel. Finally, some may remember that BA offered to return staff travel as soon as a deal is signed and be hanging on for that. Does rather highlight that there may be divisions within the striker community. The longer this drags on , the tougher it becomes for those commuters.
There was a slightly telling comment by Tony Woodley in the Guardian report about the ground staff deal
Labelling the withdrawal of travel perks and sacking of 13 cabin crew as an attack on trade unionism within BA, Unite has pledged to call a meeting of its senior BA shop stewards to discuss a co-ordinated response.
Tony Woodley, Unite's joint general secretary, has admitted that "hearts and minds" of other Unite members need to be won over first before the union can even consider escalating the dispute. Unite has described a further strike ballot of cabin crew as "inevitable" but only if peace talks between the union and BA fail.
Sounds like Tony knows how the other Unite reps will respond to any overtures from BASSA for solidarity. I'd also question the inevitability of any further strike ballot, unless Unite are determined to have yet more egg on face. Time will tell.