Because every good conspiracy needs a boogyman to complete the story. Any time you hear "entrenched bureaucrats" or "unelected volunteer" you are hearing someone develop the boogyman to accompany their conspiracy theory that translates into human talk as "I lost an election and now I am looking for blame."

The same people that say I think I am "the smartest guy in the room" also attribute some type of Jedi mind control to me where I get the elected reps and the entire pilot group to vote against their interests for my supposed nefarious motives. As you said, the reps are more than capable of making their own decisions, it's extremely insulting to think that they would so easily be swayed to vote one way or the other. In essence, they are asserting that the Delta pilots can't even vote for their own reps, because the reps they choose are so easily manipulated. In reality, I am just another pilot that tried his best, succeeded sometimes, and failed often. The only difference is that when I failed I accepted my own responsibility and tried to learn from it. I did not try to find some conspiracy or boogyman to blame my failures on.

Speaking of motives, these people cannot come up with a logical reason why I and others would try to sabotage the contract. I get the same pay rates as every other Delta pilot, work under the same rules as every other Delta pilot, I am not independently wealthy, and I work this job to support my family just like everyone else here. Why on Earth would I not want to make our contract the best possible? What is the motivation here?

As far as Jedi mind control, if after reading this post you find a transfer of half your mid month paycheck to my bank account, don't question it, just accept it.