When companies (or governments, come to that) announce the need for change and how they intend to deal with it, unions point out the potential threat of their proposals.
That's what unions do. It's not in their interests to have their members feel too secure in their jobs, because otherwise the members may decide it's not really worth spending money they might prefer to spend on something else, to the union.
THAT'S what people forget about modern unions. They are BUSINESSES they want to make money and the big ones like Unite have many officials with earnings that put them into the 40% tax bracket. (Much though they crow about "fat cat bosses", when critisising the companies their members work for.)
Factor in politics (and what we are seeing now, is a move back to the more extreme left in many of the main UK unions) and you have a mix for potentially unreasonable union behaviour. And I say that as someone who believes in the principle of unionsism.
Pointing out the potential threat of change is fine. It's the job of a union to do this. The reponsible unions will tackle proposals for change responsibly and NOT overdo the scaremongering and misinforation. They will negociate from the basis that any settlement needs to be for the benefit of the members AND the company.
As crew, OUR problem has been that OUR union has acted in a manner completely opposite to this.
You have to ask yourself why.
Self interest? Pathalogical hatred of one man and/or what he stands for? Because that's all they know and it's worked before? All of the above? That's for history to show, perhaps.
The trouble is, that people with strong ideological or emotional attachments to one side or the other, just WON'T now make a choice based on the facts, because "keeping the faith" is more important than anything else.
So yes, MissM, I AM proud to have backed BA, but only because I'm proud that I stood up for what I believe to be right and didn't give in pressure from colleagues to be loyal to an organisation and point of view I see as totally and fundamentally wrong.