Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
Scambo, Fly4Hire and Bar have effectively explained why the RJ pilot issue is a red herring.
Also at the last BOD when no one was running for Sean's job a OH pilot stood up and wanted to take the position, he was not just shot down my mainline pilots, he was also shot down by the RJ pilots as well.
He wasn't just shot down. Sean wasn't even running and was nominated on the floor as an attempt to prevent said OH pilot from getting the nod, and won with the support of the RJ delegates.
These RJ pilots that are represented by ALPA want us to get our scope in order so they can come here. Ten plus years of stagnation have stunk, but alas they are finally seeing the writing on the RJ wall. Like rats on a sinking ship, they are trying to go anywhere they can.
+1 This is a point that gets lost in all the hyperbole. They have our backs more often than not, and we give them something they could never achieve on their own. While counter intuitive on a superficial level, having the DCI carriers not in ALPA, or DAL out, would facilitate exactly what proponents of DPA say the conflict of interest is now.
Unfortunately some ALPA volunteers, while well intentioned, have through some bad advice, treated this alternative representation issue as if it was treasonous, and have exercised a form of ALPA McCarthyism against our fellow pilots, coworkers, and dues paying members for what is a right under the law and our own constitution - the right to vote for the other guy.
In doing so they have, in my opinion, further alienated and exacerbated the problem while attempting to fix it, and have given the impression that it is more about protecting the organization than it is the pilots they represent, which could not be further from the truth.
While the DPA claims to be a grass roots organization with 3700 members, typically less than 30 people show up at a LEC meeting for a base with thousands of pilots. I have a hard time making the jump from the current apathy to the claimed effectiveness of DPA given that these same grass roots proponents don't show up and vote and could literally remake the MEC in short order should they not be as apathetic as everyone else.
Based on objective measures, and the battles that lie ahead from contractual to industry to legislative, there is no way I can see the proposed alternative agent being more effective than what we have, thorns and all, and would likely be far less effective.
The real enemy here, if there is one, is not ALPA or DPA, but pilot apathy, and the fact it gives rise to the ability for a small group to have to make best guess decisions for you without your input, when the tools to direct and change your union are written into our constitution and bylaws.
I've heard all the arguments that they've tried and it won't work, entrenched ALPA lifers, etc, etc. and I don't buy it.
The numbers of who participates are hard facts. The fact is the same apathy present now will be present with any successor, and it will just be a different small group calling the shots, albeit less effectively, and the same people complaining about the lack of effectiveness of the next group.
