DB
Good, eloquent posts and a welcome contribution, where to start?
FWIW Re job skills, I wholeheartedly agree. I would much rather have an experienced SCCM. Safety training is easy, a rule based response which you can try and teach to anyone with no idea of their competency until an incident occurs. People skills are acquired and I've had several potential incidents caused by junior crew defused by a wiser head. Good, experienced crew are a huge asset to BA.
Pilots weren't the deciding factor in the success or failure of IA, most of us were flying planes believe it or not. Sadly, this is another result of your union comm's being rather imaginative. On the flip side, several P's have partners who have 'lost staff travel'. It's not the black and white divide that your union would have people believe.
A lot of this could have been avoided if people HAD talked more before the strike, the confusion was horrendous e.g. I could have explained to the young guy that he wasn't going on strike against a pay cut, "No, that was your union's proposal".
You say that you think the strike prevented further attacks on your T's & C's, I have to disagree. BA was going to walk away after the crew cuts, the savings were made, end of story. Most of the junior crew seemed happy with that "I'm not working as hard as did at my last airline" or "at least we haven't had a pay cut". That would have been it for a couple of years until the next time. Yes, the reality of business is that there will be regular negotiations, for the rest of our careers, some good results, some not so good. Similarly some more senior crew saw the changes as reasonable and the lesser of many evils.
Everything else that has happened is the result of the strike and the appalling
PR. Dismissing the issues behind this, what do you think most peoples response would be seeing a Jewish star on a jacket with BASSA written inside? My jaw hit the floor! I haven't met anyone who thinks the '12 days of Xmas' was a tactical masterpiece. As one attendee said "they showed the cheering at the ballot result but you could have heard a pin drop when they announced the dates". Another (striking CSD) said "we are now more unpopular than paedophiles, 'she' only got 5 pages of hate comments (on the news website).
Where to now? You say DH has an offer. Looking back at the letter I don't see it. Quotes: "There you are in one simple paragraph, 4 no-cost measures which BA can accept which could very well unlock the door and start the beginning of the end." or: "They could start by looking at my points above". This seems like four points he wants conceded before further negotiations. Mind you, what interest does he have in a resolution? He may be out of a job then?
UNITE have lost c. 500.000 members over the last couple of years and several of their senior figures have stated publicly how damaging this dispute has been for their image. Your cause was unfortunately hijacked for various candidates leadership campaigns. TW was about to present a fantastic offer, share options etc when A.N. other announced the strike thereby pulling the rug and BA rescinding the offer. Does it not worry you that DS described the BASSA negotiating team as 'a bunch of clowns' and 'they haven't a hope of winning this dispute'.
The court case over imposition has now been put to bed. Three Court of Appeal judges ruled unanimously that BA could impose the changes, no leave to appeal further was made, so that avenue is gone. UNITE were hit for costs which I would guess (from our own debacle) run into the millions. BASSA/AMICUS need an exit strategy, not a vague wish list and a few moans. We are now nearly two years downstream from when 'negotiations' started with no end in sight. Meanwhile BA have loads of new crew, are still training VCC's and the strike option (which personally I don't believe UNITE will allow) will be ineffective. Has BA been reducing the headcount of existing crew as 'New Fleet' comes online or are we presently over crewed... just in case?
I hope things are resolved as many friends, strikers included, have been let down by their unions handling of this. Good luck in salvaging a decent result.