I had nothing to do with the Chris Darke coup, except as a voting member who wondered what exactly Chris Darke was doing for me, as it appeared to be nothing very much, if at all. I also wondered what cosy arrangements existed between Darke and our association Chairman which moved the latter to abuse BALPA resources by sending out a letter encouraging us to vote for him in the election. I am glad to read that the debate is archived, as if I remember it well there were very few people in the debate who could point to something Mr Darke had done well for the association and almost all those opposed to his removal did so on the basis that it was some grand conspiracy by the BA constituency to hijack the union. I don't think that theory has withstood the test of time and I've seen very few posters who claim Chris Darke did a better job at the helm than Jim Macauslan is doing.
I have never said BALPA is fabulous, wonderful, omniscient or incapable of error. I have challenged peoples examples of what they believe to be BALPAs self-serving nature, particularly if the examples are based on personal prejudices rather than a cool assessment of the facts. BALPA seem to be achieving good results across a broad range of UK airlines; by no means all, which should be the goal, but a broad range. Unfortunately some people don't want a professional association, they want a magic wand which they can wave and get a big pay rise, improved working conditions and a respectful management, all off the back of a 30% BALPA membership level in their company. A wide gulf between what is desirable and what is realistically achievable will inevitably lead to dissatisfaction. I'd hazard a guess that some of BALPAs most dissatisfied members are BA pilots, who seem to go from generally dissatisfied to hopping mad with BALPA despite the widespread opinion that BALPA is in their pockets. Again, the gulf between what is desirable and what is achieveable is at work.
Given that BALPA spends most of it's time copping a bad press, as the very title of this thread shows, I don't think it's wrong to vehemently defend the good it does.