I understand that there are trolls on both side of this - just can't understand the BASSA bashing and the cries on the crew thread that it is a minority of cabin crew who have voted for strike action in the past. The vote in May does not support that argument.
From Notlangleys post and note that this was after the 22 days of Xmas debacle.
b) valid vote (conducted by the Electoral Reform Service) that ended 22 February 2010
_____________________Total__Yes____No___Spoiled__Not returned
Number of ballot papers_11691_ 7482 __1789___11______2409
Percentages__________100%_-_64.0%_15.3%__0.1%___20.6%
I don't know how many cabin crew BA have but I think it is a fair assessment that the vast majority are (were?) BASSA members and hence included in that ballot paper number. 64% of them voted for strike action. That is a strong madate - on an aircraft crewed by 11 cabin crew, that would be approx 7 who voted for strike action, 2 who voted no to strike action and 2 who didn't vote.
It seems many on this thread like the idea of democracy when it suits them, rather like BASSA. The mandate for the strikes in May 2010 and for the continuation of this mess lies firmly in the hands of those 7400 cabin crew who voted for strike action. The next set of results will be interesting. But it would be useful if we could remember that it is BA cabin crew who are voting and not BASSA. And that it may be that those BA cabin crew we see as "enlightened", "progressive", "forward thinking", "realistic" and "customer focused" are actually the minority of BA cabin crew and not the majority.
As I said earlier, there are poor and excellent "employees" and "management" in all companies. I'm not knocking BA cabin crew. But it is ultimately THEIR choice whether to vote to go on strike, not BASSAs. Bashing BASSA is missing the underlying reason for this continued mess - the simple fact is that the majority of BA cabin crew voted for it.