A closed shop would be far more democratic
Deny choice to allow choice? I'm sorry but this is errant nonsense.
Henry Ford started the ever increasing spiral in Western wages for the good of his business with the $5 wage, paying more than double the average hourly rate. He did this in order to allow his workers to be able to buy his products. Ultimately to compete for skilled labour, his competitors had to follow suit.
This trend increased the cost of material goods in the west and was, for the early part of the 20th century, successful as the "other" economies simply did not have the abililty to compete. Once the "other" economies of the world caught up and could produce the same goods for lower prices due to lower unit costs, western industry was doomed to evolve or die.
Ultimately over many years this process will lead to similar unit costs of production world-wide but it will take many years. The economy that "wins" will be the one with the remaining industry and infrastructure when then process is complete.
BA does not hold a monopoly of anything. It delivers a product that sells on price - if the price is too high, customers move to competing airlines. BA has positioned itself at the high or luxury end of the market and so must deliver a consistently high class product to survive. It is a truism that when a customer pays a lot for a service, not only must it be high quality but it must also be highly flexible and move with the cutting edge of possibility.
UNITE and particularly BASSA move with the speed of a glacier, they are a force for stagnation not for flexibility, they have forgotten that the health of the company that pays their employees is paramount - without a healthy company there are no employees and hence no union members.
The NUM may have been protesting about pit closures due to an inability to compete with cheaper foreign pits but how successful were the unions at protecting those jobs? How many miners jobs are there in the UK now? How many members of the NUM are there in the UK now?
Unions need to fundamentally change their relationship with the very thing that gives them life and livelihood and start working with the companies that employ their members. Squabbling over unimportant issues and dreaming of a return to the days of the closed shop are symptomatic of a failure to grasp the reality of where we in western industry stand. It is time for the union movement to evolve - if it does not it will surely die. It is time for the union movement to once again become a force for revolution not stagnation.