In the fullness of time indeed BA and IB staff will be TUPE'D onto IAG contracts thus saving a great deal of cash.
Surely this amalgamation or whatever we would like to consider it is merely set up to do just this. Exactly what has happened to BMI !
There are no IAG contracts. IAG is a holding/management company with a small set of staff. bmi was a different scenario to the formation of IAG from the merger of BA and IB.
And this is complete bunkum:
Rumour is as a per thread and it is said BA pilot seniority list will be tacked onto end of Iberia seniority list
BA and IB operations will not be merged.
The whole rationale behind the IAG structure is that airlines that join IAG keep their own brands and operations.
BA and IB have different brands and marketing positions and separate operations and it will stay that way (bmi was different in that was essentially bust and there was no logic in keeping the brand/operation separate from BA). That way you don't dilute the local commercial/operational expertise and market presence of BA and IB nor do you distract them from day to day operations, leaving IAG focused on overall group strategy and revenue/cost synergies from merging the back office functions in IT etc.
IAG has seen how hard it has been to merge large airline operations within the same country (see US Airways) and I don't think anyone would seriously contemplate a cross border merger of airline operations. It's more trouble than it's worth.