Carl, every orginization is conflicted on any given issue from time to time. I also have no issue with the democratic process that DPA has decided to partake in. It is totally within the rights of every Delta pilots to advocate and vote for alternate representation. I have not had any issue with that for the last year and a half. What I do have an issue with is, doing it in the middle of our first full section six in a decade. It would be like engaging in a domestic conflict while fighting a war with a foreign enemy. How well do you think that would work out?

Everything I have seen from my friends and coworkers that are for DPA revolves around an issue of people and what decisions they are making in their positions. Some do tout a conflict at national, but again when in a discussion, it immediately goes to this person or that person's decisions in a given position. As I have said repeatedly, ALPA does have the framework in place to fix each and every one of its ills. What is lacking is the advocacy framework from line pilots rising up and making vast changes at the local then MEC level. Those changes would then be brought forward to National.

Given CALALPA and UALALPA's positions and issues I highly suspect that if it happened here and there, FDX would follow suit. The RJ vote would not matter as these three would have well over 50% of the vote and could mandate any change they wanted.

As Teddy Roosevelt said, "Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big."

He also said: "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official..."

We disagree here, but ALPA like our country has the framework to usher the changes desired in, it is the people that make the decisions who, in my opinion DPA and its supporters have an issue with. I say, stop the rhetoric, and work within the system to facilitate that change that a group of DPA's size can make. It they choose not to, then one must just accept the results as they arrive.

We are entering a very important contract negotiation, and DPA has about five months before the opener is exchanged, less time if the company comes to us for a extension so that they can keep labor peace with us during their next acquisition. Point is time is fleeting and as a result, the time that DPA has to affect either one of these events could be measured in terms of days, weeks or months.

Plenty of pilots would like to see the traditional check and balance return to the governing of DALPA and ALPA. Conflict within the system is part of the process, and that sort of conflict I have fully support, because at the end of the day, it makes the decision and results of those decision much more acceptable to the pilots as a whole. I call it transparency in the process.