Your implication is the Southwest employees, especially the pilots, have ridden the gravy train of sacrifices made by the other airline employees.
Ok. But then how do you reconcile that with the numerous statements by many on this forum that the Airtran employees carried the company on their backs for years and made it into the highly successful airline that it is today.
Using your logic, the wonderful contract they signed AFTER SWA bought them should be attributed to all the other airlines especially SWA. We raised the bar for them and it was nothing they did themselves. Is that it? Slippery slope.
Sacha,
Just to bring this back home, I do think that the payscales and workrules that you now enjoy are a result of the hard fought negotiations by unions other than your own. I know SWAPA has been successful to date in their negotiations, but to say that the work done by others did not play a role in setting the parameters (starting points?) of your negotiations, I don't agree with.
I don't really care so much about continuing this discussion into your last two points. However, I will say that yes, your contract helped them. But the question still remains; had they not been acquired by an airline with a benevolent management, would they have had to do it themselves? Probably not, but with a 98% strike vote, I think they were ready to go all the way.
Best of luck.
S