ANY talk of 'taking on the company' is futile with the present membership numbers. Until we have over 90% membership, we may as well shut up and spend our time developing some sort of coherent strategy. Most of you who 'rationalize' your decision to not be a member tend to be the first ones to whinge and complain about things. If you think you're going to see any improvement to your conditions while not contributing to the only organization that has a hope in hell of dealing with the company...well, you're bigger fools than I already believe you are. The AOA is not perfect...never will be. They are however the only organization that has ANY dealings with the company on an industrial level. Or I suppose you fancy your chances of an 'individual' pay raise if you drop by Nicks office and ask him how the wife and kids are...? Time to grow up boys. Join the AOA, or please, shut it. The first thing I ask someone who is whining now is 'are you an AOA member'. If the answer is no, I tune them out as they don't deserve further consideration. Perhaps a little history lesson: when the membership was almost 100%, we saw raises of 10% + per year. I don't think that will happen again, but we certainly won't see a whiff of such numbers at present membership levels. BTW, Lufthansa just awarded their pilots 9%, with further raises for the next 3 years.....oh, and they nearly all belong to their union.