Wherever did reasonable go?

It has always been dug deep into the fabric of the legal system and has been a real factor in taking the absoluteness of a legal code and relating it to real people living in a real world which is rarely perfect.

The concept itself means that people's culpability is moderated by the extent to which they can reasonably be expected to fulfil the demands of any law.

So where has it gone to in industrial relations law? It would appear from the courts' treatment of disputes balloting that the only "reasonable" expectation is a counsel of perfection, that while all other lowly mortals should make all "reasonable" efforts to conform to the letter of the law, nothing less than perfection is expected of the organised working class.

Want to ballot for industrial action? Fair enough but, according to the Tory - and new Labour - anti-union laws, you have to be fairly precise about the people who you ballot. But how precise is precise?

You could reasonably expect that the union concerned should make its best efforts to ballot all those concerned in the potential dispute.

But what happens when the bosses are calling for voluntary redundancies in the meantime and don't bother to tell the union concerned who has and has not accepted redundancy?

Individually informing the union of their changed status is generally not the first priority of members whose lives are facing upheaval by the acceptance of redundancy. It usually comes a long way down the line after looking for a new job, rearranging the mortgage payments and worrying how to make ends meet.

And so a union in that situation ballots all those who it believes in good faith to still be involved individuals. That's a far cry from excluding people unfairly from a ballot or including unaffected people gratuitously.

But to the courts of this country that apparently isn't enough. Not applying any concept of reasonableness means that any delay in communication of redundant members with their union is sufficient to invalidate a dispute ballot.

And that means that legislation which claims to be even-handed becomes a bosses' charter. Any dispute ballot can be nullified on a technicality, even if the result is overwhelmingly for action.

In the case of the BA dispute, the end product is absurdity. In the cause of supposedly protecting the rights of cabin crew to have a ballot untainted by interference, the courts have nullified their right to have their grievances addressed at all.

It's not as if the number of those balloted who have left or are leaving would have made any difference to the result of the ballot. Even BA managers admit that the number of ballots that should not, in strict legal terms, have been included is around 1,000.

And, in a 12,000-strong ballot which achieved an 80 per cent response rate with a 92 per cent majority of that 80 per cent in favour of action, a thousand votes is nowhere near enough to affect the result.

But it was enough for the bosses' court to enact a bosses' judgement and halt a legitimate strike.

The Unite union is rightly furious about the judgement and, quite properly, has declared its intention to rerun the ballot immediately after Christmas.

The bosses, meanwhile, have obtained a stop on an action which it was quite clearly the declared intent of the workers to hold.

And that means that, while bosses can sell their products or not as they choose, the airline workers are not free to withdraw their labour.

And that freedom is one of the hallmarks of any civilised society that doesn't countenance forced labour. The anti-union laws are clearly being abused by intransigent bosses and there is no legitimate defence of that abuse. These laws must go. They are an insult to workers and an attack on democracy itself.