A copy of the 'joining BALPA' page, from BALPA's own website...
Especially for Fuzzy112!
How to become a Member • Monday, September 6, 2004
To qualify for Full Membership you will need to hold a current commercial pilots licence or flight engineer licence and be engaged in British commercial flying. Alternatively you may be a ground instructor or helicopter winchman employed in British commercial flying.
If you meet the above criteria but are not engaged in British commercial flying you can join us as an Associate Member or Associate Trainee (for those actively training to obtain a commercial Pilot Licence).
You can apply online now by clicking here. We will then process your application and advise you of the category of Membership appropriate to you. We will also provide you with a Direct Debit form to enable collection of your subscriptions from a UK bank account or advise on any alternative payment methods available to those applicants not having a UK bank account.
How much will it cost?
Full Membership fees are based on a percentage of your salary at the 1st of January each year. There is a special reduction for new members in their first two years of membership as shown below. :
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Full Members
0.5%
0.75%
1%
*Please note that ground instructors and winchmen pay a fixed 0.5% of salary for all periods of membership.
Associate Membership costs £24 per annum.
Associate Trainee Membership is free of charge.
Fees are usually payable in advance but can be charged monthly if paid by direct debit.
Looks like 1% to me still. There may be tax benefits yes but if someone asks you what you earn do you give them the after tax figure? No! I can only quote on what I read, and what I wrote, according to the Union themselves, was factually correct.
I take on board your coments Max Angle but it is a free world. I was actually a member of BALPA for many years. All I saw though was that whenever anybody really needed them, they either didn't want to know (a certain tail scrape springs to mind) or weren't very effective. If you tried to claim on your car insurance and they didn't pay out, would you still use them the following year? Fuzzy112 probably would, I wouldn't. This is all I've done. Voted with my feet for what I consider an ineffectual Union. If you have different views, that's your perogative. I don't slate you for it. I'm not here to slate individual characters, it'd take too long. I have a life outside the company, many of you on here appear not to. I would rather not have BUPA cover from the company either or LOL. I would rather have the money they pay for them. They both offer very limited cover. I would put the money toward better policies. It's ok having these things but they have to be worth having. I was a BALPA member while a lot of these things were put in place. I've seen things starting to slip over the last few years though and BALPA are proving ineffective at stopping this slide. So I left. You choose to stay. That's up to you. Maybe it's time to form a different union? I'm off back to my life now, I'll maybe pass back this way in a few days to see how many of you are still off your perches!
PS Thanks 'High bmi' for the vote of confidence!