To really have no respect for people who strike..

[stealthpony]

...when it has the potential to cause so much public disruption?

I don't give a bollock what they're striking about. I've had a weekend away planned for months. Imagine if it's your wedding abroad or a funeral or a holiday you'd worked fucking hard at on minimum wage all year to get? It could be for any reason but striking airport staff will stop all of your plans and you go nowhere.

AIBU to think that THEY are the unreasonable ones or can someone please explain to me why I should be on their side?

so where does it stop

Perhaps you should take your holiday in Tolpuddle?

i want a regular break and maybe able to book a hoilday without giving 7 months notice, also spending christmas or birthdays with my kids.

YABVU - the right to withdraw labour is an important one and not one arrived at lightly, esp. in the light of all the anti-union legislation of the last god knows how many years.

Having said that I'm very glad we're flying from Luton and not Stansted tomorrow...

ha ha ha at suck it up

I don't have the right to strike in my job. If I don't like it I can always leave and try and find another job. I would love a pay rise, any pay rise. 1.5% would be fab. Not had one in nearly 3 years.

Val; think you've misunderstood me,

if a poster comes on here moaning about strikers. and then says she's on the minimum wage, what the fuck does she expect me to say?

I'm a union supporter. She's on the lowest wage possible because she thinks strikes are an inconvenience. She'll have to get used to being on crap money with that attitude.

Yabu.

As others have said, isn't the point of striking to say "Look at my value, people are inconvenienced when I don't do my job so give me better pay/conditions/whatever"?

The main problem with striking is that you more often inconvenience (innocent) colleagues who are not a member of the same union and who get pressured to take on extra work to cover that of striking colleagues.

Just a word from someone who remembers when unions actually had power - I have absolute respect for workers who fought and went on strike for real grievances, health and safety issues, and proper living wages etc. I am and have always been a union member. But it is a sad fact that sometimes strikes in the past were called for less worthy reasons (I'm thinking Timex Dundee in the late 70's for example). Maggie Thatcher set about breaking the unions and she largely succeeded so that they are now a toothless beast. I have vivid memories of the Miner's Strikes in the 80's and how awful the resulting divides were between families.
I was a youngster during the winter of discontent and remember the power cuts etc. and workers being forced to take reduced hours. I also remember the hardships during the last recession and when ours and everyone elses mortgage interest rates were 15% and pay rises were derisory. BA staff are not the only group to be offered a low pay rise but I'm afraid they may find that they are the straw that is breaking the company's back.
Not sure if I really have a point here other than to say I can see both sides of the argument!!

i would not trust BA

i really do not give a flying fuck why they are stricking, if i went on hoilday i have said it would take 3+ years to save up..who are they to prevent this.

ge over it is all i say

Val; think you've misunderstood me,

if a poster comes on here moaning about strikers. and then says she's on the minimum wage, what the fuck does she expect me to say?

DP, Sorry if I am missing it entirely but where does the OP say that?

Mumof2...get over what?

I wasn't replying to the op, read back

I absolutely support the right to strike - but the economy is hardly robust (double dip recession anyone?) - and it is extraordinarly myopic to vote for strike action in these circumstances in an industry with massive structural difficulties. Perhaps they want to see their employer go out of business. They hardly have a mandate either when less than 50% of union membership bothered to vote. It all seems a bit fuckwitted to me

the fact that that you took a job, that you knew what benifit you got then still moan

YANBU - I have very little respect for such people either.

50% of union membership should vote for a strike for it to take effect.

Mumof2, circumstances do change while you are still contracted though all kinds of ways.

Should you just accept them then?

Barmy!

You have little respect for strikers? Why doesn't that surpise me

I think they need a good slap - apparently they want a £450 bonus per employee for nearly meeting their bonus target (they were 3% off their target but want the bonus anyway for trying hard - diddums)

Yes, god damn them. The hideously extortionate sum of £450 (per year, yes?).

I bet they're all already mentally spending it on caviar and champers in their weekly shop

I will admit I am not exactly without a vested interest in this matter however....

Valp - oh fgs - they didn't meet target, they don't get the bonus. Simples

Good luck to them, hope they get everything they want.