g-code
100% spot on. Unfortunately trans-national unions and even a framework for trans-national collective agreements are something that the collective unions and umbrella unions of the EU totally failed to grasp.
My feeling is that unions preferred to keep their national fiefdoms and the influence that came with the ability to negotiate contracts, which they were not willing to share. They totally overlooked the "divide and rule" possibilities that came with increased "agility" of corporations moving parts of their production intra-EU-"offshore", especially after the opening of a substantially cheaper labor market with the eastward expansion.
While companies can basically operate anywhere within the EU with minimal fuss, most countries labor laws don't even allow you to sign a CLA that is valid outside your own countries borders. A scope clause signed for an Alpine airline is worth nil in the neighboring country.
You can't even blame pilot unions for this as they're way too small to introduce EU-wide contracts. That was botched by the big umbrella unions who form ETF and EGB and represent labor vis-a-vis the EU institutions.
You can blame pilot unions for taking veeery long to realize that we need a strong European representation. ECE is woefully small compared to what the employers muster in terms of BRU lobbying power and many large pilot unions prefer to spend money on their home organization rather than increase forces in BRU. They still bear the brunt of ECAs spending as there are smaller unions who claim that their pilots don't earn enough to pay the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes per month to ensure their representation.
If every pilot would join a union and pay union dues at ALPA levels we might not get European CLAs but we would be able to get way more leverage. Unfortunately there are too many cheap pilots and freeloaders who shirk union membership.
Direct recruitment of union members via ECA (and maybe a way of attributing some of their dues to the national union of their current workplace) might also help.