Aldente,
Read the small print in your beloved BALPA handbook
BALPA will NOT, and does NOT underwrite your legal costs unreservedly.
Save your 1% and get private legal insurance: at least then you have the benefit of knowing you will have your legal fees covered.
All the arguing back and forth does not change the very simple fact that no one from BALPA or no BALPA hard liner can actually say, irrefutably, what precisely are the "benefits" BALPA will bring to the table.
Blanket statements of "it will improve your T & C's" don't wash: spell it out guys.
Will BALPA, through increasing existing members subscriptions, underwrite any financial losses incurred by Ryanair pilots if recognition goes through? Will BALPA, unreservedly pay the full salaries of any guys made redundant until they get another job? Will BALPA, without reservation, cover the legal fees of any FR pilot who becomes involved in litigation with the company?
I doubt it.
And that folks is why BALPA will NEVER achieve any form of recognition or support in the massed ranks of FR pilots.
Now shall we discuss the weather?