Yes it forms part of your contract as did the cabin crews scheduling agreement which included crewing levels.
Now a little law lesson for you Jock - certain terms of a collective agreement are not apt for incorporation into each individual employment contract. The collective agreement BALPA has entered into is to cover the general planning and deployment of 3000 flight crew employees but the agreement is not the stuff of 3000 individual contracts. Do you know what terms are apt for inclusion into your individual contract?
I must also point out that most employment contracts contain a clause allowing the company to make 'reasonable changes' to any terms of employment from time to time and therefore even if the terms of your collective agreement is contained in your contract of employment, then the company is able to vary the terms under that clause.
Now to your point that the company must consult BALPA, you are correct. Consultation can be a very loose process that quickly decsends into 'failure to agree' and then into imposing what I would consider as minor changes to contracts of employment. Now surely BALPA are not going to become aggressive over that?
After all any changes will put us on a sound financial footing.
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