I think I am pretty well qualified to comment on this having spent several years on a CC. I have also recently been forced to resign from my job and seek redress for constructive dismissal.
So I have seen Balpa from its inner workings out.
Put at its most simplistic, Balpa is grossly under resourced and as a result has to be highly selective about where it spends money. Recent accounts show gross revenues of circa £4m and legal budgets of less than £250K (for circa 10000 members!!).
My experience as an individual member needing help were very unsatisfactory. The impression I was left with was a well oiled operation trying to give the semblance of support but in reality offering nothing of any use. The legal support was well below par and, although my case was referred to lawyers for an opinion, Balpa's chosen specialists became experts on my case without any meeting with me or returning any of my phone calls. The filtering process is such that if these "specialists" advise the non qualified guy in Balpa that there is a less than fifty percent chance of success then Balpa does the Pontius Pilate thing and washes its hands.......
Having experienced this I retained my own advisers out of my own pocket and have just secured a very satisfactory settlement..........absolutely no thanks to Balpa.
So..........if you join Balpa expecting the best legal support if you need it, fgorget it! Your own household insurers probably provide better cover by referring you to specialists without precondition if you tick the "legal cover" box,.......really.
As a political lobbying organisation then Balpa are pretty sound. The general secretary and MG himself read and interview well and both like to wander the corridors of power talking to politicians and important people. I know for a fact that the Gen Sec was surprised at how appalling much airline mangement was when he joined the union a few years ago and that his expectations of something more akin to a gentlemens club were not met.
We were absolutely disgusted when one of thefirst major actions taken under the new stewardship was a high profile and expensive campaign to raise the threshold of pension pots to closer to two million than one million. This caused enormous offence to many of us particularly those working for scabby shorthaul operations where retirment with pensions of £10K a year was not unheard of. Nothing has been done on a similar level to address the very real issue of poverty in retirment of a lot of members and would be members.
This issue certainly gave oxygen to the view that Balpa was more at home taking on issues of greatest interest to BA members and their fortunate kinfolk.
There was then of course the Harmer case!!.....Need I say more except to wonder at why such resources and prioritisation were afforded (clearly at the expense of less glamorous grass roots needs)? High profile, attention grabbing, politically correct.......yes. But why was such attention given to a single member when this case has single handedly done more to destroy the careers of would be women pilots than anything else recently? Mad!
On a company council basis, the quality of support is totaly determined by who is your Principal Negotiator. There is at least one who is tireless, gifted, proactive and brilliant..........most of the others are thoroughly average. Above all, they are all grossly overworked and there are not enough of them.
So, overall, it is probably sensible to be a member on the basis of some element of security provided by collective representation, but dont delude yourself that Balpa will be there for you when the chips are down. Your lottery of support will be determined by many factors other than your own interests and, not least, by the resources of an impoverished and under resourced union.
Last edited by Tinytim; 8th Nov 2007 at 08:44.