BA Ballot: BASSA’s Hat Trick of Own Goals
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at 22:35 by Hippocampus.
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VintageKrugParticipantNo – this offer is being made to all staff who have not already accepted a previous offer.
There is nothing to stop BA making an offer to all staff and for those not in the union to accept it (as has already been done by over 1,000 non-unionised crew a few months ago) while the offer was blocked by BASSA from even being put to its members.
It is the Union’s collective bargaining agreement which stopped BA being able to make an offer direct to the Union membership. Collective bargaining only covers BASSA/Amicus members, and that number is falling (9,279 at the last publicly available count sourced from the BASSA website on 7 September 2010, which had dropped by over 250 in the month previous to that).
BASSA refused to put the latest offer to its membership, instead bypassing the democratic process to denounce the offer, and go straight to a strike ballot.
What BA is doing is effective trouncing the Union by turning the strike ballot back into a vote on whether or not to accept the offer – which is the very best available, and is probably final.
This has been one the cards for some weeks now, and those who did not take the opportunity to leave BASSA and accept the offer (nothing stops them re-joining once they have accepted the offer) will learn even more than they thought they knew about the rights of employers and the responsibilities of employees in such a situation.
This is a really difficult situation for those crew who are being misled by BASSA into striking without protection, and who are genuinely at serious risk of losing the job they have fought so hard to retain. Very sad indeed.
22 Dec 2010
at 14:29
HippocampusParticipantOn the offer to non-union members, WW claimed that it had been accepted by 90% of non-union members (and they had to be non-union members at the time the offer was made, resigning to accept the offer wasn’t an option) when it was first offered earlier in the year.
The number of non-union members who accept it this second time round will be interesting as it will indicate the rate of attrition in BASSA’s membership. Again, resigning from the union to accept the offer will not be an option.
Although Unite stated that approximately 10,000 ballot papers have been issued, with the ballot just starting there has already been a lot of anecdotal evidence of members who have resigned from the union many months ago still receiving union communications and the ballot paper.
If this vote, like the last consultation ballot, has a low turnout, this may indicate that BASSA and Unite have serious problems with their own membership records.
22 Dec 2010
at 22:33 -
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