Why does industrial action by some, mean that the existing sickness policy is suspended?
If it is being widely abused (I suspect that thousands of crew members do not ordinarily call in sick on a normal operational day) then the company is justified in suspending it.
Although of course Mixed Fleet was brought to the table by BASSA amongst their package of savings.
To try and claim the strike was about MF terms and conditions is a nonsense. MF came about, when it did, because of the strike, not the other way round.
Guess that makes me a dick head too!
No. Mixed Fleet was on the agenda before the strike. BASSA had the chance to negotiate it away entirely (but that would have meant significant changes to working practices that would have been unpalatable for BASSA) or for Mixed Fleet to work alongside existing crews (but again, that would have required changes to existing working practices to allow efficiency gains from Mixed Fleet to come through).
Mixed Fleet was certainly a consequence of BASSA's unwillingess to change, but it was formally confirmed that new crew would join on a separate fleet at the same time that the company changed crewing levels.
The reason why Mixed Fleet was not on the ballot paper was because it hadn't actually started at the time so the union might have been on (even more) shaky ground legally.