The opening statement of the Railway Labor Act states: The parties shall make and maintain agreements on working conditions and rates of pay. ALPA has not seen the inside of an APA contract in 57 years. Maintaining an agreement, requires an intimate knowledge of the negotiating history. It means having intimate knowledge of the prior grievance history over the language in question. The words on paper in a negotiated contract mean one thing but the actual history and prior rulings of arbitrators define what that contract actually means. Neil has been in negotiations and no doubt will be neck deep in the union if the membership adopts ALPA. You will not see a major change in personnel if ALPA comes aboard, they have to have the institutional knowledge ready to help out the boys from Herndon, when they move in.
APA is somewhat dysfunctional, but I have an earned 20 year ALPA pin in my desk drawer and ALPA can be just as dysfunctional. Neil is a great guy but he has never been in ALPA and Mitch is a smart guy but has very little experience with ALPA. I don't know about the others in that drive.
If APA goes ALPA it will be years before any meaningful change would happen. It will take a long time for ALPA to get up to speed. Members will get the slick, and most expensive magazine subscription in the United States. They will get a very good Safety and Training support product. In my opinion members will loose some very good APA aeromedical unless they negotiate to keep what they already have.
ALPA, in the long run could work for APA but to those who think it will make a difference to the company, it won't. It could be argued that APA is much more of an unknown threat to the company. ALPA would never have allowed the 1998 sickout staged by APA president LeVoy. The company got a Federal injunction and LeVoy ignored it. A Federal judge ordered APA to pay $45 million and APA didn't pay up. The parties were in mediated negotiations with Don Carty's management and LeVoy told Carty to simply add $45 million to what ever they agreed to. AA was going to pay the fine.
The APA response to what precipitated the sickout, the Reno Airlines integration, was so badly done by Carty that the AA board removed him several years later. Management was stunned by APA's response, it was a total communications and intelligence failure by the part of management. APA saw a major scope violation and declared war on the company. This was all in addition to his mishandling of post 9/11 issues that further angered the employees, like management bonuses when employee's were losing their jobs and the company was posting loses.
ALPA would never defy a Federal Judge, the first rule at ALPA is not "schedule with safety" but "Protect the Mother-ship." ALPA's first order of business is to protect ALPA.