Dare I suggest that there are forces within Unite determined not to see a settlement? The message from a "member" has some very familiar undertones.
. LATEST NEWS UPDATES
27th October 2010 - Ballot Update
FORTHCOMING BALLOT
We were hoping that the ballot on the offer would have been posted to you by now. However it is being delayed by legal issues. One of these is the litigation mentioned in Walsh's side letter. What exactly would have to given up by both sides in the claims going through courts is supposedly still not finalised. This is a very important part of any deal, and you need to know exactly what claims we would both have to concede.
Hopefully this delay will only be short. If, however this does put back our ballot more than a few days, we will have to consider reducing the amount of time the ballot runs for, as all of you are anxious for an outcome and all our subsequent options must remain open to us.
26th October 2010 - MSG from a Member
On Friday BA will announce interim results which will show that the airline has moved into profit. It is expected that we will have a profit of around £60m for the half year so far. This includes all the costs of the volcano, plus the cabin crew dispute, estimated at over £200m in direct costs, plus well over £1bn lost in forward bookings.
Our union always said that temporary measures were needed for a temporary problem. Walsh insisted that there had been "structural change" and that the airline would never again be profitable without major concessions from employees on pay and conditions. Less than 18 months ago, Walsh stated that BA "was in a fight for survival" and "had only six months to survive".
In only July of last year Walsh said he was worried that BA's front-of-cabin traffic may never "get back to previous volumes'' – or that by the time it does, BA will be on its knees. Such traffic fell by 17 per cent in May and April 2009 and Walsh said he saw no signs of recovery.
Walsh sees no sign of recovery. Walsh sees no sign of recovery. Repeat as necessary..........How wrong can someone in his position be in such a short time?
Quite simply Walsh has attempted to use a downturn to screw his workforce and now it has backfired. BA's underlying financial health is so robust, that it couldn't help making a small operating profit in the third quarter of last year! Walsh is guilty of talking our airline down. He has depressed the share price by his downbeat comments, which are no more than insider trading in another form. QC John Hendy accused Walsh and BA in the recent High Court action, over the airline deliberately nad artificially enhancing the downturn it knew was coming, by not carrying over profit "from the peak year of 2007-08".
How must those staff who worked for a month for free now feel? They have been taken for mugs. And even worse are BA's pilots. What a shameful episode for them. Duped into believing that BASSA was out to destroy BA and their cosy little agreement, hundreds of them volunteered to fly as Scabs to break the legitimate dispute of their cabin crew colleagues. How stupid they look now, with their cheer leading morons on PPRUNE still trying to save face over the justification for their actions. What were those "books" that BALPA saw showing BA in such a dire financial position? How inaccurate those figures now appear to be. Who in BALPA is going to take responsibility for leading its members up the garden path, volunteering pay cuts and whipping up anti cabin crew sentiment? Where is the Airbus Captain? He has some explaining to do.
What goes around. comes around. It is all unravelling for Walsh and if the litigation over impositon goes badly for BA, he will have no option but to resign. He used a false premise that the airline was doomed last year, to con employees like the pilots into giving up pay.
Walsh is "entirely responsible" for his actions which has caused BA to lose so much money, over an unnecessary confrontation with his front line staff. Don't forget BA wanted £140m in savings.....that was NOT the difference between the two sides which was closer to £10m. He and his "dysfunctional management" have dragged BA through the gutter rubbishing staff who did not agree with his view and damaged the brand over such a relatively small amount. Unless of course, his agenda was simply union busting........Now that would explain everything.
So what now? Revenge is a dish best served cold. Reject the latest proposal.
Keep the faith!