Serious, not flame, question: What changed, Joe?
At one point, you cared about ALPA, I think you were even elected as an officer in the association, and seemed to have been motivated. Now, you are one of the most vitriolic haters of ALPA around. Was it one thing, a series of things, what? Did ALPA change? Did you change? What happened?
Actually, I have never cared about "ALPA". I have cared about making ASA a better place to work...I could give a rat's a$$ about ALPA.
I was never a big fan of big unions. I only got involved because things were so bad working under George and John....long before you were hired.
When I first got involved, I blindly believed all the BS that ALPA put out....Then came TA #1 in 1997....which included a paycut for FOs at year 3-6, and totally screwed the ATR folks because I guess props are somehow less important than "jets".
At that point, I mounted a "just say NO" campaign with buttons and all...We defeated this lame TA.
I then found myself on the next negotiating committee and saw the "inner workings" of ALPA....I was not impressed. We spent more time negotiating against ALPA then we did negotiating with managment...ALPA told us we were asking for too much because we were just "regionals"....Near the end game, we had to tell Randy Babbitt that we didn't want anyone from ALPA national in the negotiations.
After the second TA, where we gained more than ALPA said we could achieve, we heard ALPA staff members lament the fact that they hoped other regionals didn't try and achieve what we had just achieved...They couldn't believe we got what we got and didn't want other regionals to think they could get the same.
In 2000, after ASA and CMR were purchased by Delta, the ASA and CMR MECs proposed that a single list on the Delta property would be advantages to all parties involved....The Delta MEC and ALPA national were shocked that measly regional pilots dare think they belonged on a major list...It was shot down by arrogance and short sighted ignorance. Now we ALL suffer the consequences by having to "bid" for flying within a brand which puts downward pressure on ALL players...including the mainline folks who think they are better...
We could also talk about the issue of ALPA Presidents making over 500K a year while regional FOs made less than 20K....We could talk about ALPA continuing to support people like Obama which turns off more than half the membership and IMO hurts the economy which in turn hurts us...Shall I go on?
I haven't changed...I have always questioned authority and asked "why?"....I don't blindly follow anyone....