BALPA and other airline unions do have the distinct advantage of generally having intelligent people at the helm who do not blindly follow socialist doctrine with no acknowledgement of commercial reality.
Excellent. So self sponsored type ratings become the norm, management can ride roughshod over the pilot group.
Unions have managed to create the working environment that we now take for granted such as the 40 hour week, safety protection for the workforce, injury compensation, abolishing child labour. In fact just about everything you take for granted in the world of work has been fought, and in some cases died, for by trade unionists, but you keep thinking that all unions are communists.
Then again, in the UK train drivers now have, in some cases better T&Cs than pilots, so obviously union representation is a bad thing.