In his letter of 15 October to Brendan Barber, General Secretary TUC, Willie Walsh incuded the following extracts:
I am pleased to confirm that I will recommend to the BA Main Board to reinstate remaining staff travel concessions under the following circumstances:
.........
2. Behaviours
.........
In line with the spirit of the agreement, communications issued by Unite and its branches must be more balanced and measured than they have been.
.........
3. Litigation
Unite will not directly or indirectly commence, continue to pursue, fund or otherwise support any litigation against the company arising in relation to it’s calls for strike action or the strike action which it’s members took in December 2009, and/or March, May and June 2010. Details of the specific claims are included in the letter dated 15th October between British Airways Legal Dept and OH Parsons acting on behalf of Unite.
On this basis, I will recommend to the BA Main Board to authorise the granting of the remaining non-contractual staff travel concessions to those crew who no longer enjoy the concessions .........
BASSA's 27th October communication states:
..... 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. .....
Walsh's letter to Barber seems pretty clear to me - any and all litigation relating to the call for strikes, and actual strike action since December 2009! I'm not sure that BASSA has
any choice in "What exactly would have to given up ...." It
all has to be given up for Staff Travel to be returned in April 2013. And BASSA has to be "balanced and measured" whilst it gets on with it!
