ADM, It was a lot more complicated than you make it out too be, a bit similar to EZY UK covering EZY Portual striking (or potentially!), theres more beneath the surface. The BALPA/RYR fight fell flat on its face because RYR threatened to close down all the small UK bases, reduce based personnel at the larger ones and base the aircraft in Europe and operate in the reverse if recognition was achieved in the UK. The question was then asked of BALPA, can they do this? can you stop them?
A lot was learned from that campaign and the experience gained showed that a pan European initiative was the only way to tackle this problem and this squarely puts us into the RPG era.