There seems to be some mis-information spreading about whether or not CABIN crew could be dismissed following the next round of strike action. The source of the confusion is what is meant by 'legal industrial action'.
For clarity there are three forms of industrial action:
1. Illegal Industrial Action
This is the case during 'wild-cat' strikes, walkouts or industrial action following a ballot that has not been conducted in accordance with the law. [This is what scuppered the first round of strikes proposed by BASSA in 2010].
2. Legal, Protected Industrial Action
If the ballot has been conducted in accordance with the law, the first 12 weeks of industrial action are 'protected'. All that means is that if an employer dismisses staff for striking during the 'protected period' the dismissal is automatically unfair.
3. Legal, Unprotected Industrial Action
Once the 12 week period has expired the further industrial action remains 'legal' [as long as any subsequent ballots involved are conducted in accordance with the law], but the IA in no longer 'protected'. That means that if an employer dismisses staff the dismissal may be deemed unfair. But it may not. An employment tribunal would have to make a judgment based on evidence from both the employer and the employee.
Simply talking about 'legal' industrial action is not sufficient to determine what action an employer could take. Discussions need to be in the context of 'legal and protected' or 'legal and unprotected'.
The question for crew is: Is the next round of strikes 'legal and protected', or 'legal and unprotected'? One way of answering this is to determine whether or not the two rounds of IA are linked in any way. Since BASSA are balloting members over issues arising from the first round of IA (loss of pay, loss of Staff Travel etc.) it is clear that this 'new' dispute is a dispute about the 'previous' dispute. Hence, by definition, the two disputes are related.
So the next round of IA will probably be legal [ballot conducted correctly], but unprotected [same dispute, outside 12 week]. Meaning that BA will be able to dismiss strikers without the dismissals being automatically unfair.
Ultimately, only a court can decide whether IA is protected or unprotected. BA may be happy for that test to take place after it has applied sanctions.
So, why haven't BA announced what sanctions it will use against strikers in the next round of IA? Simple: No strike action has been announced yet, so there is no need for BA to jump the gun by announcing anything yet. When the result of the ballot is made public BA will be in a position to announce what (if any) sanctions may be used. I say may, because the sanctions used will probably depend on the number of strikers. As pointed out elsewhere, BA are unlikely to dismiss 7,000 cabin crew due to the impact on the operation. But if only 2,000 cabin crew strike BA may take a harder line. 2,000 cabin crew could easily be replaced by MF, volunteers and temporarily reducing crewing levels until MF numbers are up to the required level.
When you hear or read material that discusses BA's options in 'black and white' terms, your source is probably not up to speed on the realities of employment law, or is trying to give you false confidence in one particular course of action. Nothing - including BA's options - is set in stone. They have many options, and dismissal of strikers may be one of those. Of course, dismissal is subject to various ifs and buts, but it does remain and option if the cards fall in the wrong way.