Quite a difference from Mr. Holley's missives about over-drinking and telling members who disagree with his stance to leave the Union.
At the risk of being tautological, is this any great surprise?
McAuslan is the general secretary of BALPA, not merely a branch secretary of Unite.
There is far too much attention paid to Holley here.
The reality is that if British Airways cannot communicate effectively with its own employees and an ex employee has some svengali type of hold over them, then the company needs to take some swift action to correct this.
Whilst others on this thread seem to place all the blame in this dispute on one branch of Unite (and CC89 has not exactly covered itself in glory recently), I believe that British Airways cannot escape some serious questions.
After one year of industrial dispute, 16% of the total workforce are prepared to vote for strike action, which may well be 'unprotected.'
As Litebulbs said, the inconvenient truth for some posters on this thread is that it appears a substantial segment of the workforce do not trust the company.
Before I get the normal outrage for the usual suspects, let me just say again that I believe BASSA has acted unreasonably and unprofessionally, but BA has failed to connect with its workforce.
It is not insignificant, IMHO, that the HR director departed a few months ago.
The last strike action was inconclusive, in that it failed to deliver concessions to the striking employees; equally, it did not end the disupte. It was, IMHO a bad result for all, not least those who worked through the strike and now feel that they gained little for their support.
The cost of the action, IIRC, was circa £150m, plus any brand damage due to a certain amount of disrupted travel, despite what appeared to be effective contingency planning.
Is BA prepared to keep paying out large sums of money, in the form of wet leasing, compensation etc, if Unite calls strikes once or twice per year, on an ongoing basis?
What message does it give to other employees, to see a certain group keep breaching contract?