I really don't want to get involved in this thread because I am now retired and I never worked for Ryanair.
However, I can tell you about what happens when you try to get BALPA involved.
I became a very disenchanted BALPA member when they did absolutely nothing for me when BA (and their friends) put Laker out of business.
Some years later, I got involved in a new start-up operation and called BALPA (I was stupidly still a member) and told them that I had just got involved in a new-start operation that could grow to 30 - 40 aeroplanes.
"Good for you Old Boy" said they "Call us back when they want to join".
I was elected as the Pilots' Rep by ALL of the pilots. Not a single pilot demurred.
I went back to BALPA with this information and I was told that "For the moment, considering the number of possible members that we could recruit and considering the possibly very litigious company involved, we are not really interested".
As you can imagine, that advanced my opinion of BALPA hugely.
My biggest worry was what would happen to one of my members should they slide off the end off a runway at Athens (for example) and find themselves in jail and that the Company might find it convenient not to defend them.
And so it was that I found an organisation that gave just such an assurance for a very modest fee.
The cost at today's prices is around £125 for £250,000 of legal costs and the big advantage is that your legal defence is guaranteed whereas BALPA will only ever defend you IF they think they can win the case.