Unions provide a valuable service to employers too. They enable a single point of contact for negotiations on pay and other employment terms and conditions. A good union/company relationship is symbiotic. Inevitably there will be times when unions and the company within which they work differ in their aims and goals and a dispute develops, as we now have at BA. However, the relationship between BA and BASSA/CC89 - I deliberately do not say UNITE, has become toxic, the realtionship has become parasitical, the union is providing nothing that the company needs at the moment, but without BA the union will die. The problem is still what happens next?
When this current dispute is over, and it will be resolved eventually, will there be a working relationship left between the unions and the company? or perhaps more importantly can the relationship that there is left be repaired. One thing is certain, BA can exist without BASSA/CC89, the reverse is not true; unions are pointless without companies to provide employment for their members. BA does not need to repair the relationship with the current branches, it could choose to actively promote a new relationship with the PCCC or any other union it chooses.