I disagree wholeheartedly with what you are saying. ALPA is not a union for the majority. It is a union of special interest and RJ pilots. They are too busy trying to drum up membership to raise dues dollars that they have forgotten about the pilot groups that are responsible for the lions share of their income.

Take for instance the current ALPA structure. You and I do not get to vote for who WE think is the best choice for ALPA National Chairman. In fact we can call our reps and and a majority of us can tell them to vote one way and they can still vote another. The process at ALPA is not democratic. The same can be said for the voting of your MEC Chairman. It is not done by a vote of the pilot group. It is conducted with politics and backroom deals. The democracy of ALPA is a farce. ALPA should have term limits also. Many of our pilots complain about management guys that stay in the office too long. I think there should be limits on both sides. If you don't have to worry about flying with the guys you screw over then your choices are going to be what is good for YOU versus those you will have to work with.

Also, if ALPA wanted to engage the masses we should conduct council meetings via the web. How many pilots are off and can attend the average council meeting. There are ways to conduct meetings on the net yet ALPA knows a small influential group of pilots at a meeting are much better than a large group of engaged pilots. The excuse is often they can not have web meetings because they aren't secure. Really? There are plenty of secure ways to conduct business over the web. In fact ALPA will only allow us to vote on issues via an electronic method these days. Also, I was able to close on the financing of my home via the web. If it safe to do that then I am guessing there are ways to conduct a meeting safely on the web.

Finally, voting Paul Rice as the ALPA president is just the same as extending Prater's term. Neither of them have any recent airline flying experience. Rice probably hasn't flown an airplane in over 10 years. Do you really think he is the optimum choice to know what the average line pilot experiences?

Get rid of ALPA. Let those guys go try to find real jobs and structure our union in a democratic way. Allow the pilots to vote for their representatives and institute term limits. Changes need to be made or ALPA will become an extinct species very soon.

L