For what its worth, my thoughts are that BA pilots dislike franchises, because they are perceived as the easy way of getting rid of cost problems, rather than forcing BA management to get its house in order. You could argue that it is not the franchise pilots fault. Very true, however, as a mainline pilot, I do worry about the reducing number of routes/bases available as a career. {Through no fault of mine} The average BA pilot earns less than the market rate. Hence the need for so many people to commute from abroad or outside of the South East.
BALPA knows that it cannot get these routes back under mainline, so the other alternative is to make sure all the pilots are under mainline terms and conditions. Seems like a good strategy to me.....