Studi,
There is no BA Express, and as far as we are concerned there will be no BA express. You can only fight what exists and not future scenarios. If you want to see an example of this look at the Openskies dispute where there was no legal grounds to fight on what could/might/perhaps will be.
There is no dispute at the moment, there is no 'fight' at the moment, there is nothing to go on strike about at the moment nor in the future either. It is quite simply that we either accept that Short Haul out of LHR under the BA Brand is not profitable and that we ALL, LH and SH, have to share a little pain (2 lost Holidays days and an agreement to forward holiday pay claims) whilst SH must also take a 5% productivity increase. Or we don't accept it and wait and see what BA has on the horizon for BMI. Personally I would rather be in the driving seat and have a hand in the future by negotiating agreements to prevent the latter scenario. BASSA buried its head in the sand and now all future routes and recruiting go to Mixed Fleet.
BA Shorthaul has always been in the firing line, long before WW came on the scene. BA has predominately been a Long Haul carrier and SH the feeder. If that feeding could be done on a lower cost base then BA/IAG would do it. Why would BA Express be interested in 'taking action' with BA Mainline if they former were guaranteed future work and expansion? The panacea is that we would all pull IA together and the company would be forced to back down. Well in my 26 years in flying it hasn't happened and I don't see it happening in the future either.
Changes in the paypoints for future joiners was an inevitability. The current PP24 schedule is unsupportable for a new joiner at 21/22 who hits PP24 at 45/46 and sits there for 19/20 years it was devised for retiring at 55 giving the 20 year old Hamble cadet 11 years at the top. The demographic 'bulge' would be massively costly. We all knew it was coming we just wanted to prevent it being included in a totally new contract with an alternate basic pay, the so called 'B' scale. The pay scales remain the same it will just take longer to achieve them. Whilst that is a slowing of pay progression it is, IMHO, unavoidable and better than starting on a lower wage, a.la Cathay, Quantas, Emirates etc. The 'new joiners' will be on the same basic contract with no changes to the pensionable pay. I'm sure you will dress it up as each year you get less of a progression than PP24, true, you will but if you don't agree to it then go look somewhere else. In the past BA pilots have given up lots to achieve fair integration for those Junior or those future joiners. The same is happening this time.