SC
 

With respect, IMO you have contributed some slightly pompous nuggets regarding what you think your fellow commenters need to do:

...and a sprinkling of ‘you miss the points’:

Plus more than a few ‘strawmen’:

Obviously I don’t speak for the forum but I dare say ‘we’ do actually get the point you are making; it is fundamentally wrong to discriminate against a group of employees who have done nothing wrong except go on a strike. You have explained why you think BA have violated the above principle.

You also said this:

So please stop repeating it and feel free to move on to something new.

[penned with a nod to Papillon post #949]

Safety Concerns:

I have no personal problem with staff travel being withdrawn from striking workers. If it had been a contractual benefit my opinion would be different, but it is not contractual.

If BA loses any legal engagement and must return and/or compensate those individuals who have had their staff travel withdrawn then so be it.

However, at the moment, and I don't see this changing, BA is capable of and has withdrawn this perk.

As for "Unite has filed..." to be the best of my knowledge and belief Unite hasn't filed anything anywhere. The basis of your argument seems to be "It isn't fair, going on strike is legal...so it isn't fair".

Until such time as a governing body says "No" I would submit to you that it is fair, its just a result that a few individuals don't like.

'Taxation of ST is coming anyway completely independent to this industrial action. We are now in Europe. The Europeans have have had a different view on this for some time and many countries already heavily tax ST. It is only a question of when and not if. '

It's here already and there is no presumption to the effect that European S&T taxation, which is not standard throughout the zone anyway, would be better or worse than that of the UK. The point is surely that if HMRC start taxing even an economy ticket, say LAX/LHR/LAX or JNB/LHR/JNB as a benefit, the amounts involved, perhaps 40% of the ticket value, are going to be enormous. The cost to the employee is likely to be significant as he/she may well be issued an erstwhile free ticket to and from work but will then have to end up paying the tax on that ticket as though its real street cost were part of that employees salary packet.

oggers, you know as well as I know that without this strike had someone started a discussion on arbitrary removal of ST there would be an uproar.

But I agree with you, this subject has run its course.

Perhaps in utopia the situation would have gone something like this:

"Willie, I absolutely support your stance against Bassa 100%. I do however feel your stance on ST is questionable. Please re-instate and defeat Bassa by other more appropriate means".

Actually, I would think it fairly unlikely that EU membership would affect taxation in the slightest, outside of the very narrow band of VAT. It's a red line from both this and the last government that taxation is a matter for the UK, and EU partners are not relevant in that debate.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe:
 

Airline: "If you go on strike I will withdraw your travel concessions"
Union: "You can't do that, it would be discrimination against people taking legitimate industrial action"
Airline: "Oh, sorry, I hadn't thought of that. Please ignore that last statement"

If BASSA were to win its impending court case against BA and succeed in its estimable attempt to have such travel determined as contractual, won't that unleash a really squiggly can of worms for the poor crews which have used such travel benefits.
Surely HMRC would be tempted to tax previous staff travel retroactively in the hands of the employee in whose contractual employment the benefit had legally been deemed to have fallen. The potential rewards for the nation's coffers would be huge, the issue too profitable to be ignored and the case work largely done. No doubt some negotiations could be entered into individually or collectively on the part of the crew union and HMRC but travel records are by law required to be kept for six years in order to facilitate retrospective tax assessment debts by the employer and employees and any UK tax case determined by law usually tends to the unequivocal.

Safety Concerns
 

Why are you on here - you have stated that you are not part of aviation - your only stance is endlessly repeating that BASSA members are being badly treated by having the withdrawal of ST as a result of taking IA - that their actions are being treated far too seriously in the responses that have resulted, despite in some cases resulting in criminal investigations - effectively that they are misunderstood and we should all back off and stop using such emotive words and responses as it is unfair!!

I suggest that you either start discussing and responding in an adult fashion or go and post on the BASSA sites, where no doubt all will be in total agreement with you.

Highlight one of my posts that supports the above.

Ulterior Motive
 

I restarted reading this forum following a conversation with a friend who knows someone who knows someone.....

I was challenged by my friend to find the flaw in Unite/Bassa's case that would be the eventual undoing of Bassa and huge embarrassment to Unite - a major flaw not necessarily obvious. I took me a while. I got there though and my friend has confirmed I am right.

I've stated it above but couched it in a different way leaving me feeling rather like a dirty troll, so I'll come clean:

Fact: BASSA membership numbers are much less than they are stating. A monitored ballot on strike action would reveal this and you can therefore not expect anything of the sort, ever!

Fact: Preparations have been made for a challenge to BASSA's legitimacy linked to membership numbers.

Fact: BASSA are totally and utterly at sea partly as a consequence of their obvious other failings but more particularly because it has been made known to them that the number of its members is under serious scrutiny. Unite will play dumb on this one, without too much effort.

That's all.

Mr Pony, I hate to be the one to tell you this but it looks as though you have been sold a donkey.

Let me guess, the someone who knows someone who knows someone is against the industrial action.

If Bassa and Unite were so stupid they deserve everything they get and I would start agreeing with Entaxei

mrpony..
 

Interesting hypothesis, and seems so bleedin obvious once it's been pointed out :eek:

I read in the Guardian that the union are claiming 67% of their members rejected the 'final offer'. Now, it was clearly 67% of the 5000ish who voted but that is different. Or is it?! Freudian slip by UNITE, predictable spin or sloppy journalism? Who knows - but it's fun to speculate sometimes. :E

It would not surprise me if BASSA have no idea what their true membership numbers are.

Of interest also was hearing McCluskey (I believe) state that they had received 7,000 and some odd number of "claims" this morning.

As BA knows exactly how many have lost staff travel and the representation is being made that they will fly 100% of long haul in the event of another strike its reasonable to believe that each "claim" does not represent a unique individual.

Unite/BASSA do like getting creative with numbers.

Safety Concerns - Donkey and Bassa numbers
 

The donkey seller has asked me not to participate in this or any other forum on this or any other subject from hereon in.

My information is robust and sourced very close to the centre.

And that really is all. Bye.

baggersup
 

The source of my information asked me to desist so I did. I was only supposed to be guessing what the big flaw was, not publicising it. I have to say, however, that I agree with you and seeing as you have already put it 'out there', and at the risk of wearing my friendship with the source a bit thin, the numbers you quote are about the same as has been indicated to me.

I can well imagine the sort of chaos this is causing Bassa - I wonder of they have found out how to delete a hard drive yet?

Re the alleged 7,000 claims, maybe they relate to separate claims for each strike period and therefore , each striker who was out all the time had to make several submissions?

Safety Concerns
 

Interesting that all your posts prior to the 28th July (3 days ago) - have vanished - so rebuttal is now impossible as are your origins - but you have been profilic in those three days.

On the question of membership, as the majority will probably pay by salary deduction I'm sure BA know a fairly good ballpark figure.
(was it not BASSA's inability to decipher the salary deduction list last year that was part of the problem they had with the Christmas strike?)

Speculation
 

Time for some harmless speculation.

On this forum and the other one I suspect we have:

• genuine cabin crew from both sides of the divide
• genuine airline personnel from both sides of the divide
• genuine SLF
• anonymous Bassa and Unite reps
• anonymous BA managers
• anonymous legally trained individuals
• back room lawyers
• and others

For what its worth I think Safety Concerns could be employed by O. H. Parsons and Col White could well be a BA manager

Westlakes:

I'm not sure what the percentage is of those who pay by salary deduction and those that make automatic payments out of their checking accounts.

Its obvious that BASSA has seen a reduction in membership, but given their own confusion regarding mailing out ballots to non-members, etc., just how quickly the numbers are adjusted after someone has departed is of interest.

Is BASSA required to present accurate numbers on its website? Is prompt reporting required or can it try to paint a rosier picture by delaying?