I disagree that this is union bashing, the union is doing it's job quite correctly in representing it's members. Some of the best work that Arthur Scargill did was as the Welfare Officer of the NUM, does that mean that he served the miners well by taking them out on strike in the 80's? You can admire the work he did looking after miner's welfare but see that he also helped to destroy their longer term welfare by destroying their jobs.
Whatever the result of the court case today the repercussions will be played out in the industrial relations of the time of the ruling not the ones extant at the time of the original case.
The issue is which country's law has supremacy. If the Chinese government were to make a law that insisted that cabin crew had to retire at 45 would that apply to UK cabin crew? This issue cannot been seen in isolation and while it does not relate directly to the current dispute it is inevitably going to be affected by the current dispute.
The irony is that UNITE may well win this case to the detriment of many UK workers and indeed to their own members at BA. If the HK base becomes too expensive as a result of this case it will be shut and those crew members will be replaced by MF, who at present have no representation by UNITE within BA. So they win the battle and lose the war.