Number of Years Flying 22 (19 professionally, 16 current employer)
Current Status/Employer Captain, British Airways
Option Selected BALPA Member, very impressed
Supporting Reason for Selection: Outlined below.....
.....Well, there's the rub. If you'd asked me ten years ago, my answer would have been different. In that time I've come to realise that BALPA is us, it is the sum total of those who choose to stand up and represent us from within our (airline pilots as a whole) ranks, the sum of their intellect, motivation and negotiating skills.
Currently, my CC is quite simply the best I have seen, with a wealth of talent, some seriously sharp people, and a realistic approach to negotiating within the current climate. Yes, that does involve a bit of give-and-take, but it also involves a degree of realism. For example, my CC is on record as stating that it wishes to be in place beside the company when decisions are being made, the better to influence them and avoid the issue (we may have had recently, leading to a disagreement) of decisions being made and then presented to the workforce as fait accompli, with no room for negotition. Indeed, the giving of room would be seen as a weakness in management, so therefore positions entrench and we all lose.
As to big BALPA, well, much as I want my family on the jumpseat again I have enough contacts there to know what they are up against. The global issues that affect us all tend by their nature to meet with similar Governmental resistance and need a strong, effective and connected lobbying group to work the corridors and make change happen. Whilst I can't say I'm altogether 100% happy with the legislative environment I work within, I would hesitate to lay that at the door of BALPA, as they are as Sisyphus pushing an establishment rock uphill, and in order to get that rock over the top it will require a great degree of solidarity combined with the above, as well as a degree of acquissence from "The Man." Given the nature of the business, I'm not sure that solidarity exists, and the acquissence is not forthcoming for any number of politally-entrenched reasons, so therefore am unwilling to blame BALPA for any lack of progress just yet.
And, yes further to previous comments, I'm a moderator, but this ain't my named forum (though I do hold a remit over the entire site,) I'm off duty and these are my opinions; we are, believe it or not, allowed to have opinions, we just don't let them affect the moderation. For example, whilst I would have phrased it drastically differently, I agree 100% with WWW about Pay-To-Fly; basically, a union can shout as much as it likes and as loud as it likes but as long as there exist people willing to pay to sit in the right hand seat of an airliner to gain a type-rating, then it will continue, simple market economics dictate that fact. If people stopped paying, it would stop overnight. Unfortunately, and historically, Homo Sapiens Piloticus is not, by nature, given to altruism when it tends towards the greater good of the profession, particularly when something big and turbine-powered is involved.
How can BALPA legislate against that, which is essentially a market economics argument?
Anyway, that's where I stand. As with all these issues, the response is by nature partisan, and related to one's own experience/current environment. Were I in a different place, different life- aviation-experiences, then my answer would perhaps be different.
Squid
(Edit: I've just had to lie down in a darkened room; I realised how big the number 22 is. Was it really 22 years ago I first started my PPL at my local flying club? It was. 
Even worse, it's 31 years since my first flying lesson, a Christmas present, aged 12. Those numbers hurt.)