You may have a point, but I don't think an 'in-house' union would work in Colgan's case. The airlines you mentioned - American, Southwest and UPS - are all large airlines comprised of pilots that make more money than at most other carriers. I highly doubt that dues collected from a group of our size and payscale could buy benefits equal to what ALPA offers. Also, I could be wrong, but doesn't Southwest contract their legal and/or aeromedical services from ALPA?
another thing is that we kind of tried this 'in-house' thing last year after the vote failed... it was called Colgan Pilot Group, I don't even know who was in the group or how the whole thing worked, but it ended up amounting to absolutely nothing. hence, this ALPA v. IBT debate.