'holic
No probs. The only points I would make are;
1/ I have seen a few pilot groups sign off on an EBA that gives that group a better deal than say anyone who starts with the company from that date on. I personally don't believe in this its just not a good look. I personally believe that when this started to happen, and that was well before I started out, that was the beginning of what we have come to today.
2/ I am a union member and have been for over 12 years. I have never had to use their resources except when negotiating an EBA. On those occasions they were very helpful to the point of being instrumental to the outcome. The thing is this situation has been cooking for a long time. If everybody joined the union today it would still take a long time and one hell of a fight to reverse the trend.
Over the years pilots have allowed themselves to become a fragmented group. I my opinion we need a good award to create a benchmark for the various EBA's. That document should cover everyone from the bottom of GA to the top of the airlines. If that happened we would all be one group fighting one cause and looking out for each other. We would be empowered by our shear weight of numbers.
I made the comment in my prev post about "we all know who they are". That was not meant to offend I was referring to the era rather than any individual. Like you I do not like to see this level of degradation of our T & C's as once the rot sets in it tends to infect other sectors. It also makes it hard to move up to an airline job if you have to take a pay cut!
SN