stillalbatross/IluvPX et al,
you speak as if 'the' AOA is some omnipotent being that has degraded and devalued your contract! The AOA is, wait for it, us! All of us...there is a representative body of all of us called the AOA General Committee...and it has the power to do, wait for it, nothing! Every bad decision, every contentious issue that has arisen for the last decade or so has been voted on and accepted by the majority. So when people say "the AOA has given away 5-4-3" or "the AOA is happy with DECs" or "the AOA has helped introduce C scales", they are effectively saying "we accept these things and will do nothing about them but will pretend the boogey man did them so we can look at ourselves in the mirror".
IluvPX, obviously you are not about to join the AOA given the tenor of your posts. So please enlighten me, and all the other idiots in the AOA, what the alternative is? I really couldn't care what the grouping is called...whether we joined the DPA or the CPU, just tell me the answer to all our problems. Or do you believe that 2300+ individuals will be more effective than one collective organisation? If the 'deals' negotiated, on individual basis, by the extendees is anything to go by, I would suggest that individual negotiation puts you at a significant disadvantage.
The 'AOA' doesn't have the answer - we do, we all do. It is only as strong and effective as we allow it to be. We have spent the last 6 years too scared to scratch ourselves for fear of what the zoologist or Manchestarian Candidate will do. When is enough enough?
My best advice to you....imagine what your life would have been like if you had been knocked back by CX - is it some miserable existence in a polluted overcrowded city with a salary that falls far behind inflation and with a management culture more akin to a Japanese POW camp or is it possible that you could have been happy?
CX, its just a job!