There is an interesting article in todays
Guardian exploring one of the possible reasons why management got it so wrong in this dispute.
BA, and the unions too, have been caught on the hop because they failed to understand that, for these relatively low-paid, often part-time, women workers, the welfare of children comes first - above money. According to Simon Duncan, professor of comparative social policy at the University of Bradford and a member of Leeds University's care and values research group, BA is making a "rationality mistake" in assuming that working mothers make individual cost/benefit decisions about work in the same way as men. On the contrary, according to Duncan, rational decision-making for women involves "moral and socially negotiated views about what is right and proper".
If BA were making the "rationality mistake" it would have expected its female workers to agree grudgingly to the card system (as did the 95% male group which accepted it two years ago) and eventually, probably, to working split shifts, perhaps in return for higher pay. But for these women (many working part-time), money cannot balance the loss of flexibility. If split shifts are introduced, and they cannot be fitted around the needs of the children, then they will give up their jobs. They literally have nothing to lose in refusing to budge on this issue.
Perhaps a reason for managements mistakes are the seemingly total lack of women in senior management roles. In a company like BA where probably around 50% of its staff are women, having a senior management composed entirely of men could be seen as an error.
Now we are in the 21st Century and BA is mainly a customer service company, perhaps the old style macho/bully boy management style of Skippy is not what is needed in todays enviroment? - bring back Babs perhaps?