I agree with both Alfa and Nerd, and let me throw one more log on the fire;

The Railway Labor Act

We have to work within that rule set. Who writes those rules? Politicians. So who pays them? The ATA Lobby pays them about ten times more than the ALPA PAC.

Now, I have always given to the ALPA PAC, but I know the ATA PAC has a lot more more money to "Invest" in Congress than does the ALPA PAC. Any "Job Action" will run up against the RLA brick wall pretty quickly, and then what? What's the "DPA Plan" to deal with the RLA and Mediation?

Ask the APA how long they've been waiting for a raise.

And on the whole "Other Guys" arguement, while it might feel good to toss DALPA off the property, as Alfa and Nerd point out, it's a lot of work, nobody wants to do that work (What did you think that Rocking Chair was for?) and sooner or later, you'll have the same guys running the show, but more importantly, it's the same un-involved guys (the silent majority) sitting at home, voting yes for anything the MEC throws at them. The last time we took a strike vote at DL South, there were 3 to 1 guys calling the DALPA offices crying, "Please don't go on strike! I can't afford to miss a paycheck..." And that was when we made 70% more than we do today.

This is not the first time a group of dissatisfied pilots, post merger, have tried to start an in-house union at Delta, the last time it didn't go very far, but that was before Al Gore invented the internet...