Miss M
I think what you have said lies at the heart of the problem. Cabin Crew who joined BA in the past feel that they embarked on a career as cabin crew and it should be possible to continue.
As in most jobs the selection criteria, in your case language fluency have changed. I think over the last 15-20 years most jobs have had alterations to their initial selection requirements. Unfortunately in the case of cabin crew that fluency is a nicety not a necessity.
If you would like to compare careers, I think many people outside aviation would consider 16-17 years in the same job to be incredible stability. The fact that only now are you being asked to consider if the potential change in lifestyle (not pay, as nowhere has it been stated that you will lose money despite the BASSA rhetoric) is no longer compatible with your ambition. In any other job, including being a pilot those decisions are all part of the process.
Things change, the business model adapts and the cost base does too. The demographic within the company has altered incredibly and if time to promotion etc do not suit you then it's time to look if those ambitions can be fulfilled elsewhere.
What this dispute has highlighted is that unlike other roles many BA cabin crew feel that their career stability and path is owed to them by nature of long service. It is up the the company to modify its business model to maintain their lifestyle rather than the other way around. I find it hard to believe that intelligent, generally well read individuals actually expect that in the modern world.
BASSA has hastened the advent of a new tranch of crew, they even requested it when they wanted the numbers allowed to leave under VR to be replaced to get the numbers on board back.
They missed their chance to negotiate a crew wide allowance schedule that would have made it comparable to put new and old contract crew on all routes and so have made the old contract less economically sustainable.
All these things are not the company eating at your pay/lifestyle and so career but BASSA not seeing the future and mitigating the threats to you.
I felt truly sorry for crew at the start of this dispute who were let unsuspecting to a 12 days of Christmas strike. Post that I feel sorry that those decent people have been led by such appallingly self obsessed union leadership who clearly cannot see what consequences they are bringing on their members. I feel almost ashamed that those, still holding membership have not brought to task their leaders and demanded not only explanations but direct answers to why 3 ballots held under simple existing law cannot be run legally. Simply why are they allowing the reputation of themselves to be soiled so badly.
Unfortunately that mud sticks, not just to the individuals but to us as a company. The outwardly inexplicable continuation of this idiocy taints us all. Possible another great reason why so many VCC's are still volunteering.
My apologise for the rant, and I know it is possible a futile exercise but the smiles at work hide a deep frustration. I hope this is over and soon, but until your colleagues realise your employer owes you the money for the work you do and does not OWE you a lifestyle or career I fear this will continue. It's your decision to take what they offer or find better elsewhere.
Good luck
Jazzy