I'm not knocking the guys who gave their time answering questions in LGA, but you didn't have key people up there showing support. Key, meaning senoir Captains who have been here a while.
Thurman, the problem with that is that most of the senior Captains that you refer to are in the company's good graces. They receive favors whenever they want them, and they never have to worry about anything. They know that their buddies in management will always take care of them. They don't care that the other 90% of the pilot group doesn't receive the same blessed status that they do. Dean from the Colgan Pilot Group is an excellent example of this. Here is a senior guy that was extremely well-respected by the pilot group before this campaign. Miraculously, after creating the CPG after the union drive started, he was recently promoted to a management position. He's one of the "good old boys." Trying to get guys like that to support the union cause is impossible. They're too far entrenched in the company machine. Believe me, I tried on many occasions to call him and talk with him when I was acting as the representative to Colgan from the PCL MEC. I left messages offering to buy him lunch and talk about ALPA and his CPG. He never returned a phone call.
Lastly, Anyone who has ever been on a debate team knows to understand the issue from both sides and be able to argue it equally(without bias) will allot you the victory. I got the feeling from some people that they could not understand why people would not want ALPA and it was the only way. You need to know your opposition, you need to understand his thought process, then you need to find a way to give him the satisfaction he arrived at a decision on his own accord.
I'll admit to you, I really
don't understand why people would choose no protection and no representation. It's a foreign concept to me. That being said, I asked the few pilots that had the balls to admit being against the drive, and the only answers they could provide me about why they were opposed were the following:
1. "I'm not giving away 2% of my money to some union"
2. "Unions are communist. I'm a Republican."
3. "Duane made too much money."
4. "I just don't like union."
Are these well-thought out reasonings? Sorry, but you can't debate with someone or understand their position when they're just making statements like "unions are communist." In all the time I spent in working on the Colgan drive, I never once had a pilot approach me with a well-thought out reason why representation was a bad (or even questionable) idea. If the intelligent pilots with a different viewpoint were out there, then they too big of cowards to come up to the food court and talk face to face about it.
Personally, I disagree with your assessment of why the drive failed. The guys that are angry about mailing and phone calls would vote "no" anyway, simply because they have a predisposition to hating unions. In my opinion, this drive failed for two reasons: pilot apathy, and too many newhire pilots that don't understand (and didn't take the time to learn) what unions are and why they're important. Because of this, I'm not even sure that the drive next year will have any more luck. There will be even more newhire pilots and many of the OC members will have already moved on to major carriers. I still hold out hope, however, and I'm sure that ALPA will once again put everything they can into the next drive.