UK pilots refusing AMS duties in sympathy with AMS pilots are liable to disciplinary action for gross misconduct: i.e. Immediate dismissal.
Correct. “The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has upheld a UK law preventing so-called ‘sympathy strikes’, which have been banned by UK legislation since the early 1990’s”:
That might be an interesting one for the lawyers. How does UK law apply in a foreign country applied to a strike in a foreign country with local based crews acted upon by crews from UK? If I understand from the Dutch commentators on here the use, by UK crews, of Dutch based a/c to strike break would be contrary to NL law. In that case the UK crews would need to fly in UK based a/c. I know they are all UK reg', but not are all UK based.
It sounds like quite an extremely stressful experience for any crews brought in as strike-breakers. They are caught between supporting their fellow aircrew and legal penalties if they strike in sympathy.
Stress is an illness which is perfectly valid reason to be signed off sick. I wouldn't want to fly with stressed crew.
Every airline I've flown for has paid lip service in their recurrent training to the concept of not flying if under the affect of a close personal stress. In UK they have decent T's & C's. The colleagues in NL are striving for an improvement towards the same. You feel they are justified and sympathise and want to help, but can't. You are then forced, against your conscience, to attack their efforts at improving their lowly position and feel you are betraying them. It could cause anger towards the same person (employer) who is forcing you into this stressful position. That could be used as a sound defence to refuse to put yourself in such a scenario. It would be avoiding exactly the emotional stresses discussed in their own in-house recurrency training. How could any judge decide otherwise. It is not a provable item. It is self-reporting and has to be respected. Each individual would make that decision. If BALPA called for such collective action then that is open to legal redress, but individuals acting alone, another matter.