Rainboe - I have no doubt you have been a proud BALPA member since 1971. After all they won you a fantastic career - no doubt you backed them 100% during your time at BA. Now you have had to depart, it would be churlish to hold the line with such strong views as before - time moves on etc. I don't imagine there was much talk of 'market forces' during your time at BA - it was all about maintaining the hard won deals against unscrupulous management. Who would have believed it how time changes? Unscrupulous management are now in fact the voice of the future against pilot intransigence. Stuff all the old union boys back on the Emerald Isle - they are living in yesteryear after all. Always best to break up uhealthy union monopolies don't you think? None worse than Aer Lingus I hear. Some of them actually want to discuss their futures rather than have their lives dictated to them - whatever next? Fortunately a great solution has been found - bring in a two-bit company from the UK to take on the work of the first company in Ireland at a fraction of the price, sack the pilots from the first company and give the people who thought it up a big bonus. As for all that nasty orange trash who seem to fill the whole of Gatwick these days, their days are numbered. Once you have pilots working for pin money you can then take on those ghastly people who dared to offload you from a flight last year because they were overbooked. It is just so clever - pay desperate First Officers a pittance because they need experience and work. Then recruit Captains with big pensions from previous lives who really only need pocket money and you are away. You can then provide cheap labour for some Irish company to face down their unions. It is just so clever and really is win, win for everyone who matters - principally yourself.
Fortunately, the word on the street is that 'market forces' in the form of the Irish unions are about to involve themselves in a big way with the Astraeus contract - not a moment too soon in my view. Any union who lets this deal go unchallenged is not worthy of the name. The testimony of history is that pilots are foolish people when it comes to standing up and being counted. It may be that they are about to buck the trend - I certainly hope so.