What is being set out is that any company has the legal right to "fire" (such a horrid word) any employee at any time, regardless of taking industrial action.
The employee has then the right to seek unfair dismissal, and compensation; re-instatement may be sought, but the company never has to agree to this actually happening.
If sacked under a "protected" strike, along will all other strikers (so treated equally) there may be recourse to an Employment Tribunal (ET), for compensation. Re-instatement may be sought, but even if granted is not enforceable.
If sacked under an "unprotected" strike, and treated the same as other strikers, there is no recourse to an ET, no compensation payable.
It only takes one of the formal reasons to strike to be proven as connected to render the strike "unprotected". Just one. That is why BASSA proposing ten reasons was barmy.
And including the phrase "related to the previous dispute" in
the official communique to BA means it will be very hard for anyone to demonstrate it is unprotected.
Some have stated BA haven't done this previously, but I sense a change of tone here; the previous strikes weren't unprotected, BASSA has zero left in its (already modest) armoury, and support is waning whilst fatigue with the dispute is on the rise.
I would expect a fair, but very ROBUST, response by BA once the undoubted "yes" vote is revealed.
With Holley's ET ruling being released publicly around that time, and a failure to produce the BASSA accounts (and I don't think that's really a legal issue, the contempt Holley shows his membership by refusing access to them is enough), and possible de-recognition of BASSA, the way forward for BA is clear.
If that means they have to ramp up Mixed Fleet recruitment to replace the jobs vacated by the more militant aspects of the BASSA fraternity, then so be it.
BA hasn't set out to "bust the Union", but BASSA's intransigence risks a self-fulfilling prophesy of BASSA's own making.