Oh, yeah, that fat bastard went down- but only because he got caught! That kind of BS never seems to stop. The BLE has the same problem, and for the first ten years or so of my time, the UTU and BLE pissed away so much money fighting each other. Now, the UTU had to merge into the sheetmetal workers' union to survive, and our dues have risen again.

I once had an Amtrak AC engage in our @#$%& and gripe session while deadheading, and he offered that it's 'our union, and it won't change unless we make it so'. While that seems so on the face, the reality is that the general membership doesn't have much say in the International level, where serious ramifications are created for a large number of people. We cannot effectively vote beyond the local level. And then even at the local level, phone-polling by the local chairman can and often takes the place of genuine secret ballots. Just exactly, who DID he call anyway??

I will stop now before I spend the rest of the afternoon damaging the keyboard. And, for those of you who disagree, that's fine; it's your opinion and flame all you want. I won't try to dissuade you.