Originally Posted by rjlavender

Reason #4

ALPA's use of "Agency Shop" deprives it of two important marketing functions that would make it stronger in today's market:

First, it deprives the Association of an internal “economic feedback loop” that would signal to ALPA policy makers the true level of solidarity among members and satisfaction with union services. This, in turn, leaves ALPA with little feel for how many pilots would vigorously participate in a work action. Marketing organizations such as Sears, FedEx, and others rely heavily on economic input from customers in order to gauge their "loyalty." But not ALPA. Thus, ALPA is operating pretty much in the dark whenever it goes to the negotiating table, Wilson polls notwithstanding.

Second, Agency Shop has prevented ALPA from learning to compete effectively with either internal or outside forces. Since 1978 (Deregulation), some airline executives, including Fred Smith, have become masters at competing for customers and for getting the best deals possible for themselves from vendors, creditors, customers, and shareholders. But while these executives were acquiring their competitive skills, ALPA continued to rely on Agency Shop to retain its customers. This is why the ALPA of 2007 looks remarkably similar to the ALPA of 1978. Not much has changed. If Fred Smith continued doing business the old way, he would no longer be in it. Short version: Fred outcompetes the pilots.

One possible reason that the company agreed to the Agency Shop provision is because it knows that a single-product, take-it-or-leave-it attitude weakens the competitor that adopts it (the only people who do not seem to know this are the pilots). Also, some pilots have expressed their suspicions about the fact that the union gained Agency Shop at the same time the company gained a free hand to optimize flying. Perhaps, there is no connection, but if there were, indeed, "real enhancements" in the new contract, why did the union think that it had to keep people from leaving the fold by protecting itself with Agency Shop? At the very least, this does not look good.

When the MEC chairman made reference to the union acting like a "business" some time back, what, exactly, was he talking about? Agency Shop is the farthest thing from acting like a business that one can imagine. In my opinion, Agency Shop has been devastating to the profession and it needs to disavowed at once...not "the next time around."