We have ourselves to blame for the macro-position we find ourselves in. Pointing fingers at who sits in what office at the GO is mental masturbation. When the company violates the contract we need to hold them accountable; just as they hold us accountable. It's our obligation to file a Dispute when they don't follow the contract, and if it has ANYTHING to do with a possible safety issue - file an ASAP to go with it, as the Safety Department requires. That puts the issues in front of the FAA, and a spike in valid preventable ASAP causes can't (shouldn't) be able to be ignored.

Also from Flying the Line II:
"By the late 1960s, most airline pilots flying the line believed they had seen the last of predatory managers who might threaten their livelihoods. ALPA had won repeated victories at the bargaining table and had beaten back challenges to its status as the preeminent voice of professional airline pilots. A certain mythology emerged, which found far too many pilots willing to believe that the tough, disciplined Old Guys who had created ALPA during the era of wooden wings had won all of the wars and that only tranquility stretched ahead for their legacies in modern jet cockpits. Far too many airline pilots contented themselves with running businesses on the side, polishing their golf games, or simply relishing the good life they lived....

When airline deregulation first began to make it headway in Congress, most ordinary airline pilots paid little attention. ALPA's leaders opposed it, as did most of the major airlines for which they worked. ALPA's presidents and national officers, who have always tended to be more politically aware than the rank-and-file, saw clearly that deregulation posed dangers for their union. But by the early 1970s, the typical airline pilot, like military officers who extol free enterprise will living in a cocoon of government benefits, had become a reflexive political conservative who seemed oblivious to these benefits derived from unionization and government regulation. Consequently, ALPA's officers took considerable flack from rank-and-file pilots for opposing "free enterprise."

"I often marveled at the utter ignorance of my colleagues," says Bill Himmelreich, a retired Northwest Airlines Capt. "Sometimes I had to sit there and listen to a kid copilot making $60 grand a year say, 'What good is ALPA? We're professionals! Why do we need a labor union?' The little jerk actually thought he was worth his salary. He wasn't! What he was really worth was what Frank Lorenzo would pay him on New York Air, about $16 an hour. All the rest was gravy, courtesy of our union."...

By the early 1980s, as deregulation began to hit home, the absurdity of a group of trade unionists mouthing the platitudes of free market ideology was obvious. What was not so apparent to an airline pilot living in a snug Republican suburb during the 1970s, was painfully clear by the early 1980s. But in fairness to ALPA's leadership during the 1970s, we must remember that they did not pull their punches when denouncing airline deregulation. The problem was that the rank and file output member simply wasn't listening. J.J. O'Donnell never ceased evangelizing against deregulation, despite considerable flak from his rank-and-file.

"We are a trade labor movement," O'Donnell constantly warned skeptical pilots during the 1970s. "When we forget that, we start getting dumped on."