I seem to recall, from whichever thread was running at the time, that it may be in excess of 90%

101917.
'Time for some harmless speculation.
On this forum and the other one I suspect we have:


* genuine airline personnel from both sides of the divide
* genuine SLF
* anonymous legally trained individuals
* back room lawyers'

This whole BA business is not of great significance any more. I think the matter has to some degree become a devilish if silently gleeful speculation as to the fire and brimstone awaiting members of BASSA and their leaders. I have a sneaky suspicion that more people wish them ill than applaud either their actions or their moralities. No doubt the same could be said by some of the BA board and Mr Walsh but no one much these days is speculating sensibly on his demise. One hopes he is in rather better shape than was secretly John Smith. Therefore I think it is reasonable to conclude that some read these pages in anticipatory delight of the sufferings to come and that others read the paper mill in some trepidation as to what others might suggest could come.
Anyway I'll confess to being or having been all four of the above strata of Illuminati at one time or another and of course I adore genuine cabin crew. But you'd have to ask my lawyer for my definition of genuine when it comes to cabin crew and I might just have to put a disclaimer on that anyway.

Unite have for several days now indicated that the offer on the table is acceptable, IF ST is returned.

This offer is worse than previous offers dismissed out of hand by UNITE/BASSA. This has caused BA to lose money and passenger confidence - who knows how much damage to the brand has been done and the resultant knock-on cost.

So if the offer is accepted, the strikes have been for nothing - in fact they will have cost CC some Ts and Cs.

If I was a member of the BA Board (the ones who are directing WW exactly how they want him to proceed) I would be doing my utmost to make sure that the CC, who caused the losses for absolutely no reason or gain, were hung out to dry.

If the Board and WW wanted to crush BASSA (as some CC claim), is it any real wonder to any sane thinking person out there?

Mr Pony
 

Your speculation as regard future BA action fits in with my own. I wondered at the time why BA was sending individual contracts and "I'm not in the Union, honest" forms to people it knew were in BASSA. Then it was suggested to me that it would provide very good intelligence for BA as to the possibility of winning a de-recognition ballot, ie if lots of remaining BASSA members tried to accept the offer.

It's at times like this that Unions really wish they hadn't agreed a check off deal with an employer. BA has a very good idea how many members BASSA has, just by looking at how many staff have subs deducted from their salary each month. They know how many stopped paying in time to make a honest declaration when signing their acceptance of the offer. They also know how many signed the offer but are still in the Union and so will be getting, or already have a "We regret, but..." letter saying they can't accept the deal as individuals.

All the above is very useful in giving BA an idea as to whether or not they'd win a derecognition ballot if they went for one. It's actually high risk as, if they lose, they're stuck with BASSA for another three years at least. However, if the numbers look good, they can at least threaten Unite with it. The key point here is that, whilst BA could not use the offer to induce staff to leave the Union, there is nothing as far as I know that stops them using the offer to induce staff to vote against maintenance of the collective bargaining agreement. If I'm correct on this, then BA could go for derecognition, and state that if they win then they'll retable the offer and thereby allow Union members to sign up to it.

The above is all speculation. However, I keep thinking back to the AGM where Walsh and Broughton apparently said they were "sick and tired" of BASSA, which is somewhat undiplomatic langauge to use about an organisation they expect to continue as a valued partner in the business. The fact is, though, that BA know exactly where they stand in terms of the numbers wishing to accept their offer, whther those numbers are good or bad. Unite/BASSA don't. All they know is that turnout in their ballot was poor, with roughly one quarter of crew rejecting the offer. A little over 10% signalled they wanted Unite to accept it, leaving Unite unaware of the true feelings of the other 65%. BA, on the other hand, does know what they want. It may be good news for BA or bad, but at least they know. So, BA has full information, Unite doesn't. Familiar story, I think.

There below us stands the tyrant known as Willie Walsh dressed as Caesar with a gold and red and blue crown upon his brow as he opens another season of games at the Circus Maximus. Down below, quivering in anticipation of a hot and steamy end to the afternoon's entertainment huddle the martyrs. Will the emperor hesitate for one solitary second before he signals for the opening of the gates to allow the entrance of the slavering lions and tigers? Will he for one moment in the space of time attempt to halt the frenzied stampede into the ring of the bulls and the bears eager for revenge upon those poor souls? Those members of the cult of Bassa who are about to pass united into the realms of anthropomorphic history. Can any parson save them from their dreadful plight so nobly inflicted, some say in the Forum of Rome, upon themselves for believe in their own unshakeable convictions?

Well, I think i'm four of those!

jaypee - crooked numbers
 

Yes it is the only thing that makes sense to me - links it all up so to speak.

Why have a show of hands ballot in this day and age?

Why constantly dissemble about numbers and percentages?

All stuff about majorities and overwhelming support is just huff and puff.

A no confidence vote would be an excellent way of finishing the thing.

Well I am sure we will know if 50%+1 of current cabin crew have signed the new deal soon, but silence could be deafening.

It’s really not about how many have signed the new deal. It is about how many are currently union members. Whatever that number is I am sure it is getting smaller every day.

Litebulbs
 

Actually I think we'll only know this if BA go down the derecognition route. Otherwise it's nobody's business, other than between BA and each of its employees individually. BA clearly don't think it's (share) price sensitive, otherwise they would have ensured they had the numbers before releasing their trading statement today. What matters is that BA knows the numbers and can formulate their position accordingly. Unite do not know the numbers and can only estimate the degree to which BA is bluffing when they meet again next week.

JayPee28bpr
 

Hmm, your points are normally very strong, but this last post is not one of your best. If BA had 6500 signed contracts, then we would have been told. That would be game set and match. I am not suggesting BASSA are not two sets and two breaks down, but Mr Walsh would have done what he felt needed to be done, if he had the signatures, in my opinion. What would be an interesting discussion, would be what figure would trigger an announcement?

For all of us speculating as to the number of union members the only number we know with any degree of certainty is that on July 20 there were at least 5105 Cabin Crew union members. I also think it is fair to say that as many as 1686 of those members have an incentive to leave the union. Yes Litebulbs there is a deafening silence from all sides.

Close, but no cigar. I do fall into at least three of your categories though. :O
The thing that people should not lose sight of is that we are talking about two union branches. A lot of emphasis has been made of BASSA, but the other wing of Unite - CC89 - has been remarkably silent. I do wonder whether the apparent friction between the leaders of Unite, Messrs Woodley and Simpson has a bearing on the matter as well. It is a matter of public record (well actually Executive Council minutes to be precise) that Tony Woodley stated that he was unhappy that Derek failed to turn up for an Executive Council meeting on June 4th - although he had been at the previous day's session. This was as the BA strike was in its final days. FWIW Simpson is Amicus and hence has CC89 under his wing, Woodley is TGWU and has the delight of handling BASSA. I do wonder whether Simpson's tweeting was because he knew how his members were likely to jump and was offering no support to Woodley in bringing BASSA to heel. Does anyone have a clue how many cabin crew are in CC89 ?

If you said 10 years ago, that the AEEU and the T&G would eventually be one happy family, I would have said there was more chance of the Toff's and Wig's joining up in a coalition Government. Shows how much I know.

900 Then
 

Not too impressive -

British Airways divides workers over pay and perks | Business | The Guardian

Litebulbs - It says "more than 900" crew have accepted the offer, not "only 900".

What Willie Walsh (according to other reports) said was that if Unite's claim that there were only 900 cabin crew that aren't in Unite was true, then all would have accepted the offer on an individual basis. This is where the claim of "more than 900" seems to have come from. That's not the actual number that have accepted. I suspect Willie will be keeping his cards close to his chest for now.

From the guardian article

"One analyst who asked not to be named said that Walsh was wrong to remove travel concessions from staff who had been on strike, which has become a point of principle over which neither side is prepared to compromise. "The company will have to backtrack on a lot of these kinds of threats in order to get some sort of deal."

I wonder who the analyst was ?

So would I, if the figures stated in the article are true.

If you take BASSA's claim to have 9,500 members plus the 1,000-1,500 odd members that are CC89, then even if it was just 900 non-members that have accepted that is a decent proportion of non-union members that have accepted the offer.

On the balance of probabilities and as a reasonable statement, 900 would be between 900 and 950, else another figure would probably have been used?