That’s the rallying cry from the fringe but as others have said it’s not based in reality. As a matter of fact, members of Congress are actually provided a salary, something that ALPA doesn’t provide for its representatives or committee members.

Rein in FPL and then what? All of a sudden we have better representation? We can have them fly on the weekends and work on our behalf on their days off. That type of job sounds like something you really should want to retire into. Where do I sign up? Maybe we can ask them to take some of these unpaid COLAs to focus on their union work?

I’m not saying our dues money isn’t important but they haven’t shown any evidence of abuse. The ones pushing this talking point are representing the fringe, because there is no way that the majority of pilots want to use the power of recall like these guys do. There’s been threats of recall on as many as five different individuals dating back to Christmas. I fly the line and it’s more like 1 in 5 pilots who would support this behavior. They are angry and always want to share the latest rumor on Facebook, many times a miserable conversation of other angry pilots talking to one another. Most of our pilots don’t waste their brain cells on this stuff which has allowed the fringe to elect their own.