Bar, I understand where you are coming from, but "We" didn't even have membership ratification until our 1996 contract. The RJ's started showing up in 1991-2. There was no scope protection in our contract at that time for a 36 or 50 seat jet owned and operated by Com Air or ASA.
When I lost my MD88 Capt. seat in 1993, and all our short haul, DC9 flying was given to Com Air and ASA, and for the first time in the history of Delta Air Lines, pilots were being furloughed, I called my DALPA Rep. and screamed at him, for a good 45 minutes.
Most of my rant was along the lines of, "W. T. F. are you idiots doing??"
The answer I got, from our leadership, who voted on our contract, without membership ratification, was, "You don't want to fly those little jets, RJ Capt. would pay less than L1011 Engineer, and we can't have a Capt. making less than an Engineer..."
I was now a 757 F/O again (after being displaced by the loss of our DC9's) and I said, "You're right, I don't want to fly a 50 seat RJ, but I'll bet all our FURLOUGHED PILOTS would LOVE to fly it!"
DALPA was very arrogant, but so was JC Lawson. Later, after Delta bought Com Air and ASA, and guys like me were screaming at our MEC to put them all on our list and our contract, our MEC went to talk to their MEC's about single carrier status, and adding them to our list, and our contract.
JC wanted date of hire...
which would have put JC in the left seat of a 767ER.
End of story.
I hope he's happy now....douche bag that he is.