The proposed EASA changes are massive for UK Airlines operating under CAP371 - BA included as the BA Scheme is essentially CAP371. They will undoubtedly make it much harder for these airlines to compete on cost with airlines that will embrace the new changes, as their crewing costs will fall dramatically as they will be able to get far more from a reduced number of crew.
How all this makes unions an irrelevance is a mystery to me. Unions were set up to improve safety, pay and conditions - this role has not changed. The power of a union is essentially the threat of crippling a company by withdrawing labour. This threat still remains for unions that can organise a legal ballot and have a just cause that mobilises overwhelming support within its members. As an example, if 90% of BA pilots were to strike BA would grind to a halt. 10% support would be an inconvenience and the threat would produce nothing, as BASSA have found out.
The safety issues here are huge. Passengers and crew should be aware of the ramifications of this issue. However, this nonsense of the irrelevance of unions is just Daily Mailesque Fear-mongering.