It would appear that my original reply has been deleted. Trade unions are founded on the principle of maintaining and enhancing terms and conditions, but not necessarily professional issues. The T & GWU has vast experience negotiating pay and pay related benefits, perhaps their only failing it could be argued could be their lack of experience dealing with pilots.
Many of the airlines or handling companies in the UK will have T & G members within the ground based operation, so that union will have plenty of experience dealing with the styles of management associated with the airlines/airline support services.
What you need to be careful of is that Pilots pay rises are not interlinked with other employees, as this would certainly hold back wage increase settlements.
As I commented on in my previous deleted post. Trade unionism has massive tangible benefits. The work that IPMS (The NATS ATCO trade union) put into PPP and the resulting outcome must not be overlooked. The work that the ATCO’s specialist body GATCO puts in to maintain and enhancing the ATCO profession works in harmony with the endeavours of IPMS to maintain and enhance members terms and conditions.