I ain't getting on no plane, you crazy fool!

So, over the last few days/weeks you'll no doubt have heard about BA staff wanting to strike, over a dispute about pay and sickness.  With cabin crew taking an average of 22 days sick each year (more than a working month!!!!!!), BA have tried to clamp down on this, which seems fair enough.  Without getting too much into the detail, this just seems so wrong.

We feel, and this may be a bit controversial, that the actions of the BA staff, and the unions representing them is akin to terrorism.  With the World seemingly fighting a 'war on terror', determined to not show weakness with terrorists acting all over the globe, no-one wants to give in to their demands. 

According to dictionary.com, terrorism is:

1.	the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

2.	the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

3.	a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

We know terrorists are taking aggressive actions to draw attention to the plight, put the news on any day, and chances are there will be another story.  Living in the UK we are fortunate enough to live in a respectable, free, democratic society.  Other countries are not so lucky. 

The actions of BA cabin crew, encouraged by their unions, has been shocking, and in our opinion wrong.  If you are not happy with something in your job, do you not go to work one day.  Chances are that if you didn't, you'd get some unwanted disciplinary action aganst you, and/or be fired.  However in the BA situation, it's mob rule.  Just because 8,000 of the 12,000 (from memory) staff voted to have a few days off to try and bully BA into giving in to their demands. 

BA are trying to run a business, and pay their staff to do a job.  The unions in this case, and with support from their members, have instigated strike action, because they didn't get their own way, basically sticking 2 fingers up and saying without us, you cannot run your company, give us what we want, or we won't do the work (but presumably they still wanted paying for the days they were going to be striking!).  Yes, this hits BA where it hurts, but is it right - NO!  If BA cave in and give in to all demands without question, they find themselves in an impossible situation, which sets a bad precedent for future demands.

Imagine these principles applied to what the media would call terrorists.  If a government (or BA) gave in to terrorist demands (or the cabin crew) once, everyone would see this as a successful way to ensure their demands are met.  This is bad, BA cabin crew be ashamed of yourselves, this is a huge case of bullying...

dicuss.