Why? As far as alpa is concerned, everything is fine. The FAA had new duty limits proposed back in mid 90's. ALPA did not push for it. The FAA has the new FAR's tabled for over 12 years. Why has ALPA not pushed for the changes in flight and duty limits? Answer, when the new rules were proposed, the only pilots that would have benefited were regional pilots because most regional airlines duty limits are FAR's, while most mainline pilots have more restrictive duty limits in their contracts, or at least they did. But even with that said, mainline pilots have duty/trip rigs which makes it costly for the company to hold you out for 16 hours. While regional pilots are basically getting per diem as pay.
ALPA does not want to waist any political capital and **** off mainline management when they negotiate mainline pilots contract. Regional pilots are used by both the company and ALPA to get something except for the regional pilots.
It is to late for ALAP to try to negotiate its way out because mgt has there number.
Just my two cents.