I think that maybe my feelings on this whole thing may not have been very clearly stated because of sarcasm, and that I may seem to be banging the TWU drum. Not the case at all. I absolutely don't blame AAL for wanting to ditch TWU because of the incompetence and corruption. I've seen it upclose myself and envy any group that can break away successfully and legally. However, fighting union incompetence and corruption with even more incompetence and corruption doesn't sit well me. Maybe this whole thing was perfectly legal and moral, and if it was it would be very clever as well. I'm not a lawyer (obviously from my last few posts), but I strongly suspect things will not work out well for the former executive board members of 542.
I couldn't be happier for the UAL dispatchers and PAFCA. They did things the right way, again. If they can make it continue to work like they have they should be very proud. It's not wasy to run an independent union against a corporate giant. If your labor relations don't take place in Candyland, then your relatively small group better be made up of Spartans. Our labor relations take place somewhere else besides Candyland...it's more like a prison yard. I won't get into the shower annalogies, but there is a reason we keep a union run by thugs. I can only dream of leaving the yard and theses thugs behind and having our own independent union. And when that dream looks like it's coming true I will lead the charge to independence, but it will not done in a way that we are seeing now.
I hope that when the dust clears from this train wreck that TWU gets their affairs in order, but that's unlikely and we all know it. Time to go sharpen my toothbrush handle.