Sailing,

APC is the conversational equivalent of a corporate expense account and a bar in the lobby. One notable revolution was started in a pub and we should give John Adam's family credit.

With your call to action, do you mean management, or ALPA?

Surely you realize we work in a profession, which by it's disciplined nature tends to be autocratic. Dissenting views are not included inside the circle. This makes sense in management, where the Company pays us for our service and reasonably expects our full cooperation in return.

Ideally, ALPA is a member run organization directed from the hands of the members who pay for it's service with the labor of those hands. The reality is power has been consolidated in a way as to prevent the democratic function of the association. Members are allowed to voice their opinions, but non-member administrators have much more actual power over the strategic direction of our association than the membership does.

A few from our forum have run for office and were elected over candidates who had serious admin support and leverage. This forum does have some political power as a springboard for those who aspire to hands on leadership.

So, I think your challenge has been accepted and to some extent achieved. Progress will go slow until we get a small legion of civilians over here who think outside the chain of command. They will probably demand the union they pay for actually respond to members' commands.