What are the odds of a major UK airline being in a fight for survival and in dispute with a major section of its workforce for over two years, which has cost more than the required savings from that section, still being here today?
Is the penny finally dropping that the rhetoric is not the sole property of one camp?
But the rhetoric will not solve anything from either camp and it is pointless for interested parties and managers alike to carry it on. Flap62 is correct to a point.
You have to look at the demands made by both branches and discuss them. Is there opportunity to return to the pre dispute crew complements? Yes, but you pull the part timers back onto full time and use new contract staff.
Make the MTP contractual and negotiable.
Say ok, agree to binding arbitration, but anyone that is found against on an item that could be deemed criminal, will be pursued through the criminal system.
Staff travel: reinstate it with length of service set but with the dispute length taken away and rounded up to the nearest year, pending any ECoHR decision on the legality of punitive measures for protected industrial action.
Then have a serious look at the CSD/Purser grades based on how much and the way they are paid and I am not talking about cuts in the levels.
BA need the current crew and each new employee acts as a duplicated cost, until the equivalent existing crew member leaves, unless the average existing crew member earns over £15000 in allowances per year, so the negotiations being over are not true, in my opinion.
There will be a tipping point when the new are larger than the old, but the financial state of the business may be more buoyant then, which adds weight to any future discussions.
I believe that Bassa will deliver another vote with convincing numbers and 6000 is a convincing number. It will be interesting if the 3000 invisible voters turn up in the yes or no camp, or that 3000 reduces along with union membership and therefore the number of ballot papers issued.