I can not recall how many times I had to listen at the phone phrases like: "I'm sorry, but despite the fact you have the right rating and you speak the local language we can't hire you because our union dosn't want foreign pilots".... That happend when I applied in "civilized" countries like Italy, Portugal, Spain, ...
That is utter rubbish, at least as far as Italy is concerned. Beside the fact that just a minority of pilots are properly represented by a union (i.e. Alitalia), the vast majority of Italian operators either don't have one (so there is way you can have that "justification") or have no problems to hire expats even if just through a contractor. The only requirement (like it SHOULD be everywhere else) is to speak English to an ICAO level.
PZ
