Courtesy of srbrenna on another forum:
29th November 2010 - AMICUS UPDATE - BALLOT ANNOUNCEMENT
We are pleased to see that a press conference was held today to announce Unite's INTENTION to ballot it's members on Industrial Action.
Whilst we would have preferred the press conference to announce that we will be giving notification on a specific date to British Airways, we are at least moving in the right direction.
Needless to say in the interim period we will ask all of our members to ensure that their details are accurate and up to date.
It is vital that you advise us if you are off work on long term sick, maternity or taking a sabbatical – or any absence that means you will not be in the workplace during any potential strike period.
YOU CANNOT BE BALLOTED IF YOU CANNOT TAKE PART IN ANY INDUSTRIAL ACTION THAT IS CALLED.
We are gravely concerned that as a result of the press conference today, British Airways have conceded to meet with Unite next Monday under the auspices of ACAS. To the best of our knowledge this will NOT include any of the representatives from either Bassa or Amicus. This is unacceptable to us and we will communicate that to the JGS on behalf of our membership.
Furthermore we are not prepared to accept any offer to settle this dispute on the basis that British Airways ONLY agree to the "four no cost items". The current agreement in any guise is unacceptable to us and we believe to the community as a whole.
Why, you might ask? Because it is built on quick sand and has no guarantees for our future. The offer does not adequately deal with the reasons why the dispute arose in the first place. To add insult to injury, it also seeks to restrict and deprive you of your statutory rights to litigation against an increasingly unreasonable employer.
We do however believe that the four items form a good basis for discussions to commence with the involvement of the reps and will clear the decks of all the diversionary nonsense that British Airways has chosen to introduce into the dispute.
We would also like to assure you that the figures recently published on some forums suggesting that only a handful of AMICUS members took industrial action are misleading and we can honestly advise you that more than five times that number of AMICUS members actually went on strike. That is not to say we couldn't do better, because we can and we must!
Today saw information come to us that Mixed Fleet will be operating the SIN-SYD, CPT and JNB from the 08th March 2010.
Whilst this has been a long drawn out struggle with many pitfalls, one positive thing that has come out of it is that British Airways have been exposed and the true nature of their intent is now glaringly obvious. Be that the misleading rationale of an airline in trouble, or the assurances that Mixed Fleet would not adversely affect us, we can now see clearly that the leadership team cannot be trusted and neither therefore can their offer be trusted. We are now in profit irrespective of the cost of this dispute, the ash cloud and the hefty fines – and yet our work is being stripped away and our agreements are being decimated on a daily basis.
If you had any doubts about your future in this once wonderful airline, be GUARANTEED of this – unless we ALL support the call for action, and, when appropriate lawfully withdraw your labour, YOU WILL HAVE NO FUTURE- the writing is on the wall!
A frustrating example as to exactly why BA cannot negotiate with this group. Agreements mean nothing and they will not realistically negotiate.
What is particularly amazing about the above is that the vast majority of Amicus members did not strike yet their leadership will not allow them a vote on the latest offer and seems determined to force them into further loss of pay and benefits.
I disagree with those that state that Unions are entirely negative. I don't believe that to be so...but communications such as this only serve to harden the public's disdain for militant BA cabin crew.