ManillaChillaDilla Post - I remembered another bad point about the AFAP
Employees need a body (union) to be able to negotiate with the company and to arrive at mutually agreeable solutions. Where things run off the rails is when in-transience by one side or the other derails the conversation.
Our group was once under the AFAP, the employees were the ones who did the bargaining and relations with the company were amicable, the AFAP merely rubber stamped and had the agreement twix company and employees ratified. Some difference arose between the AFAP and our negotiators over some matter, forget what, and the union threatened the employee negotiators that they would send down Norm Gallagher (the youngsters will have no idea who is/was) to sort us out, that prompted a mass resignation from the AFAP and registration of our own union.
We were eventually made staff and had a non aviation boss called us into the conference room and the most informative part of his speech was, verbatim, "we (management) don't give a f..k about you people", as staff he wasn't telling us anything we didn't already know, but it was nice to have it formally confirmed.
Don't ever give up union membership to become staff was the lesson. The real lesson though was when originally under union membership the company was managed by Australians, which in retrospect accounted for the cordial relations at the time, they were then replaced by Americans from head office which is when the change to staff was made and the rot really set in - penny pinching.