Originally Posted by
MrBojangles
well I wish when they poll they'd just do it through the internet or something-then they could get everyone. Who's to say the sample is valid? Did they poll the same number of senior vs. junior people? Did they even poll people that are on reserve? Something just doesn't seem right about doing a small sample poll on something that affects everyone. And also I was told a few months ago a poll was coming in August and to let my thoughts be heard then. Wow.
Just "doing it through the Internet or something" would very likely result in skewed results due to self-selection bias among other problems.
I get that you specifically wanted to be asked your thoughts, but its not cost effective to call every single pilot. The MEC did that last year and it took nearly 4 months to complete the call. It is a massive effort.
All parts of the list: junior, senior, reg, rsv, etc were called. Something like 700 or 800 pilots were called to achieve a representative sample. The polling is conducted by a professional third party that had been doing this for decades:
http://www.teamsterssfo.com/items/is...MENTedited.pdf
There is nothing shady going on here. In fact, I like the fact that the MEC was responsible enough to order the poll to figure out exactly what the majority wants, in light of the conflicting resolutions.