It starts to get interesting when you think along the appeal process.
Let's postulate that UNITE do not win their appeal and decide to take it along the ECHR route. There is precedent for this - for interests sake try Googling Danilenkov. A case before the ECHR is one against the UK rather than against the company - it would be that UK law has failed, not that BA had not complied with UK law. Even if UNITE were to ultimately win at the ECHR, it would still be down to the UK legislative body to change the law. Generally what happens is that some compensation is awarded, but again, see the Danilenkov case where the strikers were effectively gotten rid of, the compensation is paltry.
This then, is effectively a one shot go for UNITE, if they lose this appeal there would be very little benefit to proceed further for them. BA on the other hand have everything to gain by dragging this out for as long as possible. The longer this goes on - the ST issue - the better it gets for BA. The downside is very small and the strikers who rely on their ST are being slowly drained. I am still not sure that UNITE have thought this through very well.
Last edited by Juan Tugoh; 23rd Sep 2010 at 11:58.