Ah yes, I also read the report on Duncan's 'lecture' . Must have been a real thriller, managed to attract over 50 people - mainly students. His predictions are interesting - he obviously thinks that the negotiations can be concluded inside of two weeks and that they can automatically reject the offer from BA without consulting the membership. Novel, given that the last round of negotiations by Tony Woodley took about a month. Duncan also needs to recognise that negotiation involves compromise, a concept that seems to have so far eluded him.
My prediction. The negotiations will take a damn sight more than 2 weeks to conclude. Unite will insist that the branch put any offer to the membership potentially with no recommendation, but also with an independantly drafted explanation of it - i.e it won't have the usual BASSA rhetoric, but equally won't have management spin either. At ths juncture it is impossible to say how the union membership will react as there are no clear figures indicating how many are left. After the CC89 spat I would imagine that overall Unite probably has around 8000 cabin crew members. Anyone got a better estimate ?