When Impulse was first bought out by QF and became Qantas Link the AIPA was approached with a 'shall we join you' question.
The then AIPA Com said..."Cannot happen, sorry, Articles of Association and all that."
Since that time the JPC has negotiated a very competitive package...as an example a 717 Captain at Impulse was on about 90K...now, some 4 years later, with overtime etc etc he's on nearly twice that....not bad negotiating I would suggest.
They have negotiated with management, for the most part, from a basis of mutual respect and trust...TJ being a possible exception...there have been things come up that did not work well from the pilots point of view and from management's also...and they have been fine tuned to everyones benefit.
Since then a new AIPA com has been voted in...and the basic platform of the new AIPA president was 'Limiting the growth of J*'.
Is it little wonder Jetstar pilots see little to be gained from any association with AIPA.
It's not all that dissimilar to the situation when AIPA and AFAP, on behalf of Eastern (and Sunnies from memory) pilots tried to negotiate joining their seniority lists...against managements wishes I might add.
The Eastern/Sunnies guys wanted full intergration based purely on datal seniority...they wanted their senior guys to be senior to great numbers of mainline pilots who had been flying for mainline for years and would not budge....AIPA quite correctly said 'get stuffed'.
Had the regional pilots agreed to be joined on the bottom of the mainline list NOT ONE regional pilot would have been worse off...the majority of the regional pilots would have been, in time, far better off...every one of them would have been senior to every cadet and DE pilot who has joined since that time...and we are talking what...15 years ago nearly?
Now AIPA are behaving in a similar arrogant, short sighted way..to their detriment...not that of J* pilots.
The jetstar pilots quite rightly think "why should we bother?"
The plaintive cries from the mainline pilots of "The JPC is industrially naive and their negotiated conditions are a joke" is just so much desperate and ignorant rubbish.
And the chances of uniting all QF pilots were lost 15 years ago...before J* was even an itch in someones pants.