Originally Posted by
Gunter
This agency argument is a waste of time.
The complaint, as best as I can figure, is that the young guys and gals always join so it doesn't change anything. In that case, why even bring it up? Nothing has changed for 100% of the newhires and younger pilots. Agency shop is not affecting anyone. But not having it may lead to other possibilities.
IMHO we may, at some point, start hiring more ignorant jackarses like DG who does recurrent ground school. He is a relatively young non-member and is proud of it. Who knows what kind of individual will be coming through the door in the future. Be honest, can you really predict our hiring demographic in 5 years? I don't think the risk is worth the ability to "show ALPA a lesson" by having the "power" to quit if we "need to". I think we risk going toward anarchy instead of making ALPA more responsive. Like I said before, I think ALPA is good enough if we work hard to improve it. But it will sometimes let us down.
Sometimes anarchy is the truest form of democracy. One member, one vote, one torch, one pitchfork. Like the companies we work for, if they need to be burnt down from time to time, so be it.
All I know is that market forces dictate change when consumers 'vote with their feet.' Although I fell into the contract trap like most others, the law of unintended consequences has proven that Agency Shop is an outdated, untenable concept. Sorry, but HerkDriver is spot-on with his proposal.