Perhaps an affiliation between the AFAP and AIPA would - imo - be more practical in today's climate, than the "1 out, all out" type of organisation we had prior to 1989.
My feeling is there would be greater personal pressure on upper management to resolve any serious dispute before it got to the stage of stopworks. Any individual company that had its services disrupted, or stopped, is immediately going to start losing market share to the competition, which will directly affect the bonuses of those who are most empowered to resolve the problem(s).
That is basically why I'm in favour of seeing AIPA, and the AFAP, concentrate on consolidating those under their individual umbrellas.
AIPA is and always has been a company union, with all that that implies, and you only have to look at the number of AIPA leaders who have gone on to become management pilots within QF to see the obvious shortcomings of a company union.
Sorry to pick you up on this one,
Wiley, however one only had to look at who held manager positions (eg. RFM's, Deputy RFM's) in the old Ansett and TAA and you would find a swathe of past AFAP office bearers - it seemed that it was almost a tradition!
Without a doubt, some of the "slimebags" saw the Federation as their stepping stone to a Company desk job.