"Who did what to whom, when, how and why" will get us all exactly nowhere. Nor will the "Do nothing" option.
There is a model which worked before, with great success and it is why those of us who've been through it call for a single pilot union, as MANY posts here have done.
The AFAP was largely funded by the 1% from airline members, orginally QF, TN, AN, EWA and IPEC. Then QF left for many reasons, some of which have come back to bite them. But I digress.
That 1% and the "Bank of Days" (1 day leave donated per pilot per year) plus the Mutual Benefit Fund (MBF-self funding and self administered) gave a wonderful critical mass of both money and talent. This was used to DIRECTLY SUBSIDIZE a wider group of interests. AFAP industrial officers routinely and diligently worked to improve conditions in GA and regionals, even when the % union coverage was almost negligible. That's where GA super came from, as well as support for 2 pilot ops and minimum conditions in all sorts of areas. The AFAP Technical Committee gave a great deal of help to the wider aviation community. The AFAP offices provided ready advice to any member, advice and support usually available nowhere else. The Technical library in Albert Road had great resources. The AFAP always had access to at least as good internal advice and competence as the operators, DCA/CASA whatever and kept through IFALPA and ICAO etc) right up to date on what the rest of the world was doing.
The whole idea was that at a minimal cost (1% of salary and the 1 day leave per year) we could all gradually build a better industry. Pull the lesser paid people up by their bootstraps. Even the monthly Branch Committee meetings, Executives and Conventions gave less experienced or less well resourced groups access to the "big table", to travel and accomodation most non-major pilots could never have funded by themselves.
If in all the years I was in the AFAP prior to 1989 the only requirement had been to look after AN and TN members, we could have done it on half the annual subs.
Now translate that into todays world. With a single pilot union, offices in ML, SY and BN, those with "more"could help those with "less" in myriad ways. Not by stopping their growth...when the QF pilots gave up the chance to have a Scope Clause and left the AFAP that option fell way off the table and we all paid the price. But by subsidizing negotiators and legal advice, becoming as knowledgeable about airline costs as the operators are...so that things like paying for your own rating could be properly weighed against the idea of longer careers, lower turnover, better applicants, better quality control.
This has nothing to do with turning back the clock to pre'89. It does have a lot to do with seeing how legitimate competitive forces and legitimate self interest can, with the benefit of history's lessons, be blended together to build something a lot more substantial than the sum of the parts.
It would be fairly clear I hope that I never crossed, nor thought of crossing a line back those years ago. But of all the lines I heard from those who did, that have in spades, come back to haunt them and all of us, the most bitterly ironic was "what has the union ever done for me?". Look around us...we can see what NOT having a single union has done for us....isn't it time to give a single union another try?
Woomera, shouldn't this topic be merged now with "Stop the Hatred"? Maybe there is actually some critical mass developing that could push us closer toward a less divided pilot community. I hope so.