iarapilot

I dont think all of this "mess" and dysfunction has anything to do with the label on our union organization. ALPA, FPA, whatever you want to call "us" as a union. I feel it has to do with two things mainly.

First, it has to do with the mentality, wants, education, and needs of the membership. I dont think as a group that "we" have a clue as to what a Union is all about and what it takes as a group to get what we want. For example, look at the flying of disputed pairings, or open time flying when our negotiations are not moving along very well. Some rationalize that it is "their contractual right" to fly this stuff. I would argue that it is "their contractual right" to also not fly it. What is the difference in the two mentalities? The first is narrow minded and selfish; IMO of course. The second is the realization that we do have leverage that will work if all would use it or, you just dont like flying crappy trips or extra. Most of us are sheep, IMO. Look at the LOA. 68%! And the fact that it was sold to us by our leaders the way it was. Hindsight is 20/20. But it shouldnt have taken hindsight to see what was wrong with the LOA!

Secondly, the Union leadership comes from the membership. So, you could have some leaders who could have some negative aspects from the paragraph from above. And if you have an incoherent and "independent contractor" membership, that gives no guidance to our leaders on where we will stand when push comes to shove with the Company. It also allows them to sell us something because we will not educate ourselves on what is being sold to us. They said the LOA was the best we can get, proponents of hysteria name calling, and the vast majority follow like sheep. All you had to do was compare what we had, and what we were being offered. Not all that complicated.

A worn out quote is that we are the Union. It happens to be the truth. There are quite a few of us who do get it. The problem is that there are to many who dont.