I am more concerned right now as to the union's plan over the AAVA agreement.
Are the union going to let it lapse on April 28th as stated, or are they gong to cave, and either cancel their notice to withdraw from the AAVA agreement, or simply re-sign a new one on, say, May 1st ?
The nightmare scenario is that it gets re-signed literally days after the 28th April withdrawal date, but gets re-signed "in perpetuity" (I believe that's what it's called), whereby it now has no expiry date. That is one of the scary scenarios that I have heard whispered about.
However, I don't know how the union could do that, as my understanding is that they have no mandate to renew the AAVA agreement from the members, in fact, quite the opposite. My understanding is that the union has a mandate to not renew the AAVA agreement (when it actually expires at the end of 2011, under the current agreement).
But, the union seem to have a knack of applying those mandates which it wants to apply, and giving a sidestep to those mandates which don't quite fit into its agenda.
I think there is way too much union/management collaboration going on these days. I saw it in the pensions debacle, and I am seeing it here too. And I don't like it one bit.