Mansour Ossanlu is currently approaching the first anniversary of the day he was snatched in broad daylight, beaten and thrown in prison. He is still there; his only "crime" was to be elected by his colleagues as a Trade Union Representative .

This is an extreme response to collective bargaining, and thankfully, not from within the EU. All the more responsible countries around the World both sign up to and adhere (in the main) to International Labour Organisation Conventions on the rights of employees to combine their bargaining efforts in order to reduce the potential for their exploitation. In fact you will find the fairest societies, with the least disparity between rich and poor, in those countries where there is the most comprehensive and mature regulation of industrial relations. This is no coincidence, as the most effective form of social redistribution of wealth is fair distribution from the start!

So how do these rather remote and conceptual thoughts affect the Member Associations and members of ECA? Are there real threats to either the organisations or their representatives?

I believe that there is both a growing threat to the ability of the pilot associations affiliated to ECA to represent their members, and a growing frequency of reports of intimidation and blatantly illegal practices, designed to dissuade pilots from organising themselves into a union.

• In the recent past, in an applicant country to the EU, requests from ECA for proper, fair justice for pilot members who had been made redundant were met with personal threats to the leadership of the MA.
• Pilots from one company in a European trans national airline group were sacked after they had attended a meeting of representatives of other companies in the same group.
• Pilots were threatened with paying for their own conversion training if they, or any other group of workers in the company, were successful in gaining union recognition.

Although all of these examples are despicable, it is the threat to our ability to organise, as a workforce, at company level which I believe is the most damaging to our hard won rights. Will company managements maintain good rostering, leave and pay arrangements without a pilot union to insist on our points of view being considered? Will Captains' authority be maintained or enhanced without the Commander of an aircraft being protected by union unity and hard won CLA processes?

The legal advice and legal position being contemplated following the way British Airways has chosen to exploit new opportunities created by the recent EU-US Air Transport Agreement will bring into question the relative social peace in Europe. I believe there is only one way to persuade EU Member States and the European Institutions of the need to create that comprehensive and mature industrial relations legislation at European level: to prepare for, and be prepared to engage in, an old fashioned 'fight'.