Kakpipe Cosmonaut, I suppose that Union membership in Britain would be stronger if BALPA was generally held in higher esteem by pilots.
Personally, I think that Jim Mclauslan is a much stronger Gen. Sec. than Chris Darke and that things are better in BALPA as a result. However, when pilots have a negative experience with BALPA they tend to wander off and not return. From my experience (I have been a member continuously for 15 years) BALPA is a real curates egg. My good experiences are cancelled out by my duff experiences.
At the heart of this is BALPA's third party relationship with the airlines. I.e. they also depend on the airlines doing good business. Therefore, by default, they will only ever go so far with an issue. Airline commercial management understand this point.
I have seen some appaling treatment of pilots over the years and ask myself why it is that we do not take collective action to support wronged individuals.
I agree, why pay 60k for a 17k, unstable job? Well, my first salary in 1989 was 10k flying a Shed. It was probably the best flying job I ever had but I didn't know it at the time. I too was initially blind to the issues with my passion foor flying. However the company went bust and I grew up in a hurry.
There are lots of macro and background issues too as to why the profession has suffered. Ultimately we have to blame ourselves.