Well Dingbaticus, unfortunately a lot of us, including some of your members who have not actually left the union yet, dont see BASSA as representative of the views of crew at all.
BASSA has always been a power struggle between moderate members and militant members, which is why CC89 started in the first place !
In fact, unfortunately, CC89 breaking away, with hindsight was a mistake, as it left a militant core behind to completely ruin BASSA forever, but we can't change the past.
I don't know if the breakaway GMB has anything to do with crew defence, for all I know that could be just something BASSA are saying to put people off. What I do know is that many people in BASSA are very unhappy about how they were led and even though they remain in the Union, they are not happy with the leadership at all. Many are merely in a union for the feeling of protection and simply want intelligent people to speak on their behalf but unfortunately BASSA don't seem to be able to do that anymore and due to the really bad way they were led during the dispute has actually made them rather impotent.
It's a sad state of affairs but that is the way it is.
History will show that this dispute was badly lead on both sides. BASSA was badly lead by someone who was on a personal battle but BA was also lead by someone that ultimately got his own way but at the expense of a good relationship with ALL his cabin crew, both staunch union supporters and more moderate people like myself. Unfortunately his decisions about starting a low paid fleet and creating a rift between workers that need to work together as one team with his crazy VCC project will go down in history as sheer foley.
Creating a low cost, low paid workforce and rubbing the noses of loyal crew in it by putting them in a hat is just madness beyond belief. Our brand is being damaged by this on many different counts. It is not the fault of Mixed Fleet crew at all, they themselves are just pawns in a bigger game being played. They are keen and friendly and as new crew are obviously enjoying the job. It's just a crying shame that their enthusiasm could not have been harnessed into the current fleets and that the two sets of people negotiating this were both led so badly.
Just my opinion.
Sounds like you are scared of the GMB branch Ding!