You will find that the FAAA leadership over the last 20 years have never been opposed to meetings of members.
As someone who has attended nearly every union meeting over the last 20 years when possible, the most disheartening thing for me as a member is the fact that less than 30 ppl turn up to meetings.
Given that on any day when meetings have been held perhaps over 1000 members are in town and the meetings have been widely advertised i believe that the majority of crew arent interested in attending meetings unless there is some immediate threat to them.
MM outlined at the meetings on the NYC shuttle issue that in 2006 he and his team would be engaging in some very serious dialogue with crew at meetings and by other methods. Yes lowerlobe i havent seen it in a newsletter and perhaps you would have liked to see it outlined in a newsletter, but i hazard a guess that it will come.
What will be interesting is when the meetings are held how many of us will actually attend. The executive of the FAAA meets every month, why dont you attend one of the meetings as a guest if you are really interested. Unless they are discussing matters of confidentiality i am sure you would be welcome to attend.
Forget the politics of who did what or said what, or who should have done what ok... At the end of the day the FAAA officials are lilke every other flight attendant. They work, have families and mortgages. None of them from my knowledge have ambitions beyond being a Qantas flight attendant and take their roles as an FAAA official seriously.
Over many years i have seen officials come and go and apart of a handful of self interested assholes the vast majority have tried to do their best for crew. Some with more success than others.
I have to say though that the FAAA and its predessesors is the best union in the country and is without peer. There is no other union in the country that is as accessible as the FAAA, provides more communication and responds with newsletters and emails and updated web sites like our union does.
I say this as i talk to other workers in this company who havent heard a thing from their union for years. Bearing in mind that the majority of FAAA members are women and statistically are not interested in the issues that we discuss in here, its remarkable that we enjoy nearly 100% membership.
I think that more than anything this has become a forum for venting our spleen and its not to different to what goes on at crew drinks in the past. The group that meets in the sutherland shire are no different to the group that meets on the northern beaches where we discuss issues over a beer and tell our tales and support each other through the shi*fight that has become our job recently.
Please bear in mind that when they talk at sutho, or on the northern beaches or in crew rooms over a beer its largely kept in house and the dirty linen is not displayed to the company.
This forum is read by Dixon and almost all cabin crew management from time to time. I have heard that if anything all it does is confirm their view that we are indeed dinosaurs and must be crushed out of existence.
Sad i know but we dont often help ourselves. When they perceive a great divide between the FAAA and the membership they smiile. when they perceive a divide between the long haul and short haul divisions of the FAAA they smiile. When they hear how we hate our management they are convinced that they must be doing a good job.
I think that the solution is encouraging crew to attend FAAA meetings when they are called and turning up there with an open mind and having a fair dinkum talk about the future.
That's not to say that forums like this dont have their uses but lets try not to be totally destructive in the process.....Just a thought